So we moved to Bell Fibe in January (there's a post on that coming up, I just can't finish it properly) and one of the changes we've noticed is to The Weather Network.
We have Autism in the family, so we watch a fair bit of Weather Network. The kids like it, it is soothing, and it is better than some of the other things the kids want to watch to death.
First: the HD network for Ottawa is Toronto. Why no HD for Ottawa? Dunno. So we have to watch SD Weather Network. And while this is still an improvement over SD Weather Network On Rogers, it is still pretty terrible when compared to the shiny HD channels.
Second, the format of this Weather Network channel is terrible. Instead of providing you with a local forecast and then a long-range forecast, you get much less information duplicated four or five times. Yes, instead of telling us what the long-range outlook for next weekend is, The Weather Network thinks we'd all rather know what the current conditions for Ottawa, Vanier, Gatineau, Aylmer, and Ottawa CDA (whatever the hell that is) is. And what each short-range forecast is. And what each precipitation forecast is.
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| Critical Information Differentiation |
Guess what -- most of the time, it's within the margin of error for the Ottawa forecast. The most I've seen is a deviation of one degree C. And precipitation is always the same. So: less information, provided even less usefully. Frankly I don't think the fine people of Vanier will revolt if they don't get a special mention every time the local forecast is on. I think they would be like the fine people of Kanata, and just approximate from the Ottawa forecast.
Thirdly, every time the local forecast is on, we get a faint voice over detailing the local forecast for some part of Atlantic Canada. Every. Damn. Time. It is just audible enough to be annoying, and just irrelevant enough to be... well, annoying.
So I don't know if there's a programming difference between Rogers 21 and Bell Fibe 505, or if there was some kind of programming change at the same time we switched providers, but frankly I miss the old channel.
