Prime Time Tonight

"Prime Time Tonight" was a segment that aired on The Weather Channel from October 1989 to September 1991.

The segment featured local listings and previews of programs airing that evening on cable TV during prime time (hence the name). It was narrated by two unidentified male announcers. A third male announcer occasionally filled in.

The local listings were made possible by the WeatherSTAR 4000. While the WeatherSTAR 3000 also had the ability to display information based on a viewer's location, it could not display any graphics.

Only viewers whose cable system had the WeatherSTAR 4000 were able to see the segment. Additionally, as part of the initial testing phase, the segment was only made available to viewers in the west and east time zones.

Unfortunately, the experiment failed, and the segment ended when The Weather Channel's two-year contract ended in 1991. So viewers in the mountain and central time zones never got to see the segment.

The segment ran from 6:56pm to 10:31pm in the east and from 7:56pm to 11:31pm in the west. It was comprised of a one minute local forecast, the segment itself, and another one minute local forecast.

Viewers who didn't get "Prime Time Tonight" saw a short studio segment (usually a radar recap), a three minute local forecast, and another short studio segment (usually the 24 hour forecast).

Since there were three local forecasts going on in the studio, one right after the other, the songs were recorded together. So instead of three different tracks, it was one five minute track with a short pause in between songs.

Sometimes the third local forecast would start before the previous song had ended.

WeatherSTAR 3000 viewers, who did not see "Prime Time Tonight" (except in error), had a separate playlist with five songs. The same song would play every half hour during the night. The next day, a different song would play throughout the night.

Some WeatherSTAR 3000 viewers heard the "Prime Time Tonight" audio over their three minute local forecast. Also, occasionally the three song set would play during the 5 minute "N" flavor during the late night hours.

When "Prime Time Tonight" was over in the eastern time zone, viewers there would get the three minute local forecast until the segment was done airing in the west.

For whatever reason, The Weather Channel decided to use songs for this segment that were not part of the current playlist. They also lacked narration.

There were two playlists during the segment's run, with the second one starting in June 1991.

Video Clips

Here's every "Prime Time Tonight" segment that I've posted on this site, in order by the year they were recorded.

1990

1990

1990

1990

1990

1990

1991

1991

1991

1991

1991

1991