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The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group.[2][3] The channel's headquarters is located in Atlanta. 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.[4] The Weather Channel also produces outsourced weathercasts, notably for CBS News and RFD-TV.[5][6]

The Weather Channel was founded on July 18, 1980,[8] 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.[9] 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.[10]

The Weather Channel App

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On January 3, 2008, Landmark Communications put the Weather Channel and its assets up for sale.[11] 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.[12] 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.

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;[15] 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).

Later in 2012, the Weather Channel's holding company changed its name from The Weather Channel Companies to The Weather Company.[19] The company also purchased competing weather service and website Weather Underground the same year. On March 10, 2015, Verizon FiOS dropped the Weather Channel and WeatherScan for their rival AccuWeather.

On September 9, 2015, the channel announced a phased overhaul of its programming schedule during 2016, in which the channel would gradually shift its focus back towards a forecast-based lineup. The channel cancelled Wake Up with Al, citing high production costs in New York City compared to Atlanta. It announced that AMHQ would be refocused on weather, eliminating lifestyle segments, with Stephanie Abrams becoming host and original host Sam Champion as a contributor for its prime time schedule starting November 2.

The channel's original format was similar to that of a news and information cable network. Since the creation of the series Atmospheres in 2000 and Storm Stories in 2003, the Weather Channel had seen a gradual transition toward a mix of weather forecasting and weather-related entertainment programming that paralleled the launch of sister network Weatherscan, the evolution of the always-on "L" bar/weather ticker, the development of weather.com and popular branded mobile phone applications, and the increased viewing and interest in documentary programs on the topic of weather.

In August 2015, reports surfaced that the Weather Company's owners were considering a sale of all or part of the venture, having hired Morgan Stanley and PJT Partners to explore their options.[25] On October 28, 2015, it was announced that IBM would acquire most of the Weather Company's assets, including weather.com, Weather Underground, the related mobile applications, and their underlying data platforms, for an undisclosed amount.[26]

IBM planned to leverage its Watson technology as part of the acquisition, foreseeing its use for weather analytics and predictions. The deal, which closed the following January,[27] does not include the Weather Channel itself, which remained owned by the Bain/Blackstone/NBCUniversal consortium, and entered into a long-term licensing agreement with IBM for use of its weather data and "The Weather Channel" name and branding.[26][28][29]

On March 22, 2018, Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios announced its acquisition of the Weather Channel's television assets from the NBCUniversal/Bain/Blackstone partnership. The actual value is undisclosed, but was reported to be around $300 million. The channel's non-television assets, which were separately sold to IBM two years prior, were not included in the sale.[2][3]

In August 2023, IBM announced it will be selling its weather unit and The Weather Channel's subsidiaries and apps to the Francisco Partners.[7][33] As a part of the deal, IBM will retain the company's weather data which it uses to power artificial intelligence models to sell its enterprise clients for NASA.[34]

When the HD feed was launched, none of the channel's programming was actually presented in high definition, outside of a national "satellite" version of the "Local on the 8s" segment; Epic Conditions and WeatherVentures became the channel's first two programs to be presented in HD, when they premiered on October 1, 2007. TWC began broadcasting studio programming in high definition on June 2, 2008, with the introduction of a new studio that features various environmentally friendly technologies.

The IntelliStar 2, the seventh-generation STAR system and the first to generate graphical weather data in HD, was officially released in July 2010 (although similar to previous recent STAR systems, among its modifications include an animated Lower Display Line and a Vocal Local narration track recorded by TWC meteorologist Jim Cantore).[citation needed] The system was gradually rolled out to major U.S. cable providers strictly for use on the HD feed, and would not replace existing operational STAR units from IntelliStar and older used on TWC's standard definition feed or Weatherscan, making it one of the few channels which by necessity does not have an "autotune to HD" version for providers that utilize set-top boxes allowing HD tuning to standard definition channel positions, unless the HD version has local forecast capabilities. As of August 2015, some providers (such as Comcast) are using the IntelliStar 2 on the standard definition channel in some locations.[37] DirecTV began carrying the "Local on the 8s" segment in HD via an app on set-top boxes on September 29, 2009.[38]

The Weather Channel provides forecasts for satellite radio provider Sirius XM Radio in the United States. Both services run regional forecasts on a single station, and operate several individual stations providing combined local weather and traffic information for major metropolitan areas.

TWC also maintains content partnerships with a number of local U.S. radio stations to provide local forecasts, using announcers separate from the meteorologists seen on the television channel. For some affiliates, the Weather Channel provides a limited amount of live coverage during local severe weather events (with the Georgia-based announcers connected via ISDN). Distribution of TWC radio content is currently handled by Westwood One.

Similarly, the Weather Channel also provides weather reports for a number of newspapers around the United States. This included a half-page national forecast for USA Today, for which TWC provided content until September 2012, when rival AccuWeather replaced the Weather Channel as the paper's forecast provider.[52]

On March 28, 2022, TWC announced a content partnership with CBS News, under which it will provide weather reports on CBS Mornings, the CBS Evening News, and the CBS News streaming network, as well as collaborate on investigative journalism relating to weather and climate.[6]

TWC provided numerous customized forecasts for online users through its website, weather.com, including home and garden, and event planning forecasts. Third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb rated the site as the 146th and 244th most visited website in the world respectively, as of July 2015.[54][55] SimilarWeb rates the site as the second most visited weather website globally, attracting more than 126 million visitors per month.[55][56]

It also provided WAP access for mobile phone users, desktop widgets for quick reference by computer users, and customized weather feeds for individual websites. Cell phone customers could also receive local forecasts from TWC sent to their mobile handsets via SMS by sending a text message with their ZIP code to 42278 (which spells "4cast"). The Weather Channel also provided weather forecasts for other online services including Yahoo!.[57]

In addition, The Weather Channel maintained apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV, Kindle Fire, and Windows mobile and tablet platforms. TWC formerly maintained two versions of its mobile applications: a free version that incorporates advertising and a pay version called "TWC Max" that does not feature advertising, the latter was discontinued in favor of an all ad-supported model on January 6, 2014. Aside from location-based weather forecast information, the apps provided radar maps, and tropical and seasonal updates, as well as social media related functions that track weather-related Twitter messages and allow users to send Facebook friends severe weather alerts. The channel also disseminated severe weather information, and photos and videos submitted by meteorologists and viewers, on its Twitter feed (@TWCBreaking, which also served as a hashtag usable for posts). ff782bc1db