Three years in, Fox Weather is attracting viewers — and proving the doubters wrong
Before it aired one second of programming three years ago, media pundits and analysts were already making their minds up about Fox Weather — and their reactions were skeptical at best.
There were stories published by the New York Times, NPR and others that suggested the coverage on Fox Weather would be influenced by the Fox News Channel, the cable network that is co-operated by Fox News Media and whose prime-time commentary programming is the original brand of hard conservative. There were concerns raised by some in the industry that Fox Weather would ignore, or take a light approach, to the realities of climate change, or that its coverage of extreme weather would amount to nothing more than disaster porn. On the business side, some analysts wondered if there was enough data that showed potential viewer interest in a free-to-aceess weather network.
Over the past 36 months, Fox Weather has proven the doubters wrong. No, the channel does not air political aspersions that suggest climate change is a hoax — in fact, Fox Weather meteorologists, reporters have produced story after story after story that prove a direct correlation between climate change and extreme weather. Data scientists like meteorologist and hurricane expert Bryan Norcross allow real science to guide their coverage, breaking down complicated weather phenomenon and severe storms in a way that is easily digestible to viewers who are most-likely to be impacted by them.