The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news and analysis, along with documentaries and entertainment programming related to weather. A sister network, Weatherscan, was a digital cable and satellite service that offered 24-hour automated local forecasts and radar imagery. Weatherscan was officially shut down on December 12, 2022. The Weather Channel also produces outsourced weathercasts, notably for CBS News and RFD-TV. As of November 2023, the Weather Channel is available to approximately 68 million pay television households in the United States—down from its 2013 peak of 101 million households. Its influence continues to decline with growing access to smartphones and online sources. In August 2023, it was announced that IBM was selling the Weather Company and its assets to the private equity firm Francisco Partners.
History
The Weather Channel was founded on July 18, 1980, by television meteorologist John Coleman (who had served as a chief meteorologist at ABC owned-and-operated station WLS-TV in Chicago and as a forecaster for Good Morning America) and Frank Batten, then-president of the channel's original owner Landmark Communications (now Landmark Media Enterprises). The channel launched at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on May 2, 1982. Originally, regional and local information was obtained from the National Weather Service for broadcast. Since 2002, all forecasting has been done on-site in Atlanta.
NBCUniversal, Bain, and Blackstone ownership On January 3, 2008, Landmark Communications put the Weather Channel and its assets up for sale. On July 6, 2008, NBC Universal, Bain Capital, and Blackstone Group agreed to jointly purchase the Weather Channel from Landmark, making it the channel's first ownership change in 26 years. The sale was finalized on September 12, 2008. NBC Universal also owned NBC Weather Plus, a rival service which was carried by and featured content from the NBC television network's local network affiliates; that service announced its discontinuation three months later. Over-the-air digital subchannels carrying Weather Plus have since switched to the similarly formatted the Local AccuWeather Channel, kept the Weather Plus engine, or switched affiliations to other networks such as This TV or the Retro Television Network; some have shut down entirely. From November 2008 to February 2009, the Weather Channel laid off seven long-time on-camera meteorologists: Kristina Abernathy, Eboni Deon, Kristin Dodd, Rich Johnson, Cheryl Lemke, Mark Mancuso and Dave Schwartz (Schwartz would return to TWC in April 2014, but died of cancer on July 30, 2016). With the exception of Deon, all had been on the air for more than ten years, and three of them had been employed by the network for more than twenty years. In July 2010, the Weather Channel terminated Bill Keneely, the last of the original on-camera meteorologists who appeared on the network's first broadcasts in 1982. In December of that year, the network also laid off on-camera meteorologist Nicole Mitchell, who later would file a lawsuit against the Weather Channel in 2012, alleging that she had been terminated because the channel's new owners disapproved of the time required by her simultaneous duties as a captain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve as one of the "Hurricane Hunters" team; such reserve duties are protected by U.S. law (Mitchell later served as the chief meteorologist at Al Jazeera America, which for a time also employed Eboni Deon). Inevitably, the merger of NBC on-air meteorologists began in May 2009. Former NBC Weather Plus meteorologist Todd Santos joined the Weather Channel on May 2 of that year. Al Roker of NBC's Today began hosting a one-hour morning program called Wake Up With Al, alongside meteorologist Stephanie Abrams later in the summer. However, for New York City-based forecasting operations (those utilized for forecasts on MSNBC and CNBC, for instance), the former NBC Weather Plus forecasting, radar and graphics systems remain in place, with banners changed to fit the Weather Channel's graphics scheme. On September 10, 2009, the Weather Channel co-founder Frank Batten died.
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