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NEWS > BUSINESS > CLIMATE DOWNTURN FORCES WEATHER CHANNEL TO LAY OFF STAFF

CLIMATE DOWNTURN FORCES WEATHER CHANNEL TO LAY OFF STAFF

November 24 2008

Atlanta, GA – Faced with dealing with the economic downturn as well as the onset of winter, The Weather Channel has laid off a number of employees from its Atlanta offices. The NBC owned specialty channel had already laid-off 80 workers earlier this year after the merger was completed.

“We are forced to deal with the economic conditions just like anyone else. Ad revenues are down and we need to make tough decisions. We are not happy to be losing even more members of our family but we will trudge on,” said a spokesperson for the company. “We will continue to provide our viewers with the best weather coverage in the world. Weather never ends, and neither will we.”

While the economic downturn has negatively affected the revenue for the channel, insiders indicate that new owner NBC Universal is behind the cuts. Reportedly the company has been at odds with the management of the channel since taking over and this recent cut is as much a cost savings issue as a control one.

“The bug guys don’t see the value in things like barometric pressure or atmospheric pressure. They are pushing for a more abbreviated, easier to access type of terminology. A Joe Sixpack kind of weather assessment,” said one insider. “They believe that people want to know if it’s going to be sunny, raining, or snowing and that’s about it. Many of them feel that the network has a lot of fat and a lot of overpaid university graduates who really aren’t contributing to the bottom line and may in fact be alienating a certain segment of the audience.”

While the Weather Channel has continuously been one of the highest rated cable channels, NBC officials feel that they are missing an essential segment of potential audience by having a too high brow atmosphere.

“There’s always been competition from things like newspapers, local newscasts, or things like looking out the window. They want to move towards pushing those kinds of avenues out of people’s lives and become the sole proprietor of weather information,” continued our insider. “If they prevent people from ever going outside that would be ideal. Of course the way the economy of going people aren’t going to have much else to do but sit inside and watch TV. They also don’t see the value of spending a whole lot of time assessing the weather when most of the country is under snow. They just feel it’s redundant.”

The company has reportedly been working with the Chinese government in respect to their weather control experiments which were on display during last summer’s Olympic Games. The intent is to bring more unstable weather on a regular basis in order to generate ad revenue from higher end advertisers such as drug companies.

“Global warming has been both good and bad for the network. On one hand they generate a lot of eyeball views when talking about the effects of it, but on the other the warm weather means few colds, sore throats, and the like. They are getting a lot of viewers but the mean price of the ads is going down,” finished our insider. “Lousy days mean more sickness. More sickness means more drug company money, and that means way more profit. NBC has really focused the direction of the channel like never before. They have a level of experience exploiting an audience that the weather geeks really don’t have and they are going to ride this one all the way. One thing about weather is that it’s always going to be there. They will never have a shortage of material.”

William Ashford, Business Correspondent

NEWS > BUSINESS > CLIMATE DOWNTURN FORCES WEATHER CHANNEL TO LAY OFF STAFF

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