Weekend Now

Weekend Now
Starring	Carl Parker Heather Tesch
Country of origin	United States
Production
Production location	Atlanta
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	180 minutes
Original release
Network	The Weather Channel
Release	April 21, 2001 (2001-04-21)

Original Weekend Now logo, 2001-2003

Weekend Now title card, 2003-2005

Weekend Now (originally Weekend:Now) is a weekend weather program on The Weather Channel. The program, which originally featured unique segments including world weather, lifestyle-oriented weather, and light weather news, debuted in 2001 as the first of multiple weekend programs on The Weather Channel.

Program history

Weekend Now launched in April 2001 on The Weather Channel as Weekend:Now, two months before the debut of "Live By It" (even though promotions for the new campaign were already airing), as part of TWC's shift from one program for most of the day (Weather Center) to multi-hour shows with set hosts and tone. The show was unique at the time it was originally hosted by four on-camera meteorologists (consisting of two teams). One team was Kelly Cass and Bill Keneely, and the other team was Melissa Barrington and Bob Stokes. Any given hour of the program would be hosted by one team while a member of the other team provided special segments like the Travel Forecast and Weather Maker. Graphics were distinct from the rest of TWC, using a blue and green color scheme - and most notably, the voiceovers of Bob Stokes and Kelly Cass for the local forecast introduction. Among the segments were "World Weather Watch", a look at weather in Latin American countries with meteorologists from The Weather Channel Latin America; "Weekend Wow!", where extraordinary weather would be featured; and local and national forecasts; and Weather Maker, where one of the on-camera meteorologists not hosting that particular hour would use a telestrator to explain the meteorological details behind the day's most important weather system.

In 2003, the show's format and timeslot was given to a new show titled Weekend Planner while Weekend:Now was renamed Weekend Now and was given its current 11 AM - 2 PM ET timeslot. The show in the new timeslot, unlike the original program, contained much less in the way of special segments and was much more like other programs on the network such as Weather Center and PM Edition. Directly after the relaunch, the show retained some semblance of the original program, such as using the telestrator for the Travel segment, but by the time of the next network relaunch in 2005, the program had little if anything in common with its original format. On August 2, 2008, the program began airing in high-definition.

Weekend Now is the oldest of the three weekend-only weather programs on The Weather Channel today, as Weekend View was introduced on October 1, 2005, and Weekend Outlook, which ended in March 2009, after less than six years.

Weekend Planner

After the network's September 2003 relaunch, the weekday and weekend dayparts were split into a number of differently titled shows to correspond with the time of day. The weekend morning block was split from simply Weekend Now into three different programs, one of which was Weekend Planner. Out of all of the shows, Weekend Planner along with the final hour of Weekend Outlook inherited the original Weekend Now timeslot as well as the show's exact same format, except with different graphics and music. Weekend Planner was replaced by Weekend View on October 1, 2005, and leading up to the end of Weekend Planner's run, many of the original Weekend Now special segments and features, such as "Weather Maker", were slowly removed, resulting in a more watered-down format of the show compared to its debut format and the format of its predecessor Weekend Now.