The Weather on Shaw

**The Weather on Shaw** (**LWEA**; Channel 48 and Channel 106), formerly and most commonly known as the **Environment Canada Weather Channel** is a cable television channel based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is only available to Shaw TV subscribers who reside in Manitoba, thus making it a hyper-regional specific channel. Despite a similar naming scheme, it is not directly related to The Weather Network.

The channel was launched in 1976 by Videon Cablesystems (which was headquartered in Winnipeg) and made available via analogue cable to its subscribers. It was one of the first and only 24/7 weather channels to ever exist in Canada, since The Weather Network did not exist yet at the time of the channel’s launch. The channel was a looping text-only weather information service with music playing in the background, and provided both local and regional weather information provided by Environment Canada.

Since it's inception, the channel had carried the same green and red/blue graphics. Besides some minor changes with how the text is displayed, it had remained this way even after Videon merged with Shaw in the early 2000s. In June 2007, the channel was finally given a major visual refresh. The refresh included updated fonts, an updated colour scheme, and new graphics.

## Current status and future

On April 26, 2012, Shaw discontinued the channel on analogue cable and was made digital only. Viewers of the channel would need to acquire a digital cable box from Shaw to continue receiving the channel. This notice was communicated via scrolling text at the bottom of the screen.

Following Shaw's corporate rebranding in 2013, *The Weather on Shaw* branding was dropped and replaced by only the Shaw logo on the top left side of the screen. The channel's name in the TV guide was also changed and is now simply referred to as "Local Weather", with the callsign LWEA on channel 48 on Shaw Digital Cable and on channel 106 on Shaw BlueCurve TV.

In October 2019, the channel abruptly changed some aspects of the on-screen graphics, mainly with the font size of the on-screen text and and the speed at which the text scrolls on the screen. These changes were met with backlash from viewers, since the decreased font size made the text "virtually unreadable" on most TV screens. These graphical changes were reverted one month later in November due to the viewer backlash.

In March 2020, the channel boldly made major cuts to it's display of weather information. This included the removal of weather forecasts and the removal of the almanac screen. A list of current conditions at nearby airports was added to replace the removed content. The bold changes to the channel content were met with backlash from viewers, particularly with the addition of the lengthily airport and regional forecast segments, and the lessened emphasis on local forecasts. Despite the backlash from viewers of the channel, these changes are not known to have been ever reverted.

1. ↑ On Shaw Digital Cable.
2. ↑ On Shaw BlueCurve TV.

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txA-\_7LkanA
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot65Cq6DqAA
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_epgQ9JLyw8
4. ↑ https://www.tvtv.ca/mb/winnipeg/luCAN-0006130-X
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://support.shaw.ca/t5/tv-discussions/fire-the-person-that-allowed-the-format-change-on-channel-lwea/td-p/9932
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://support.shaw.ca/t5/tv-discussions/channel-48-the-weather-channel/td-p/9918