WilkesboroDude Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Press Releases Weather Underground News News and other announcements about Weather Underground. THE WEATHER CHANNEL COMPANIES ACQUIRE WEATHER UNDERGROUND ATLANTA and SAN FRANCISCO – July 2, 2012 – The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC) today announced an agreement to acquire Weather Underground, a leading provider of Web based weather data. The transaction, terms of which were not disclosed, was announced by TWCC chairman and CEO David Kenny and Weather Underground president Alan Steremberg and is expected to close in several weeks. “Everyone in the weather space is familiar with the strength of Weather Underground and its innovative method of presenting weather data. Weather Underground will add a great complementary, brand to our portfolio, a brand with a distinct, loyal, and active user base that will enable us to reach a unique segment of users,” said Kenny. “Most importantly, this acquisition will grow the weather expertise that is central to everything we do and will result in better forecasts and weather data for users on all of our platforms.” “Becoming a part of The Weather Channel Companies will enable us to strengthen what our users love about wunderground.com, our apps and our blogs,” said Steremberg. “We see this as a great opportunity to grow.” Weather Underground’s popular site wunderground.com and its portfolio of mobile applications will continue to operate and its employees will become a part of TWCC, furthering the company’s place as the leading provider of the most accurate weather data across all platforms serving consumers and business users. In addition, Weather Underground’s San Francisco headquarters will become a regional office for TWCC. Blackstone Advisory Partners L.P. served as TWCC’s financial advisor in the transaction and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP acted as legal advisor. Weather Underground was advised by Digital Capital Advisors, LLC. About The Weather Channel Companies The Weather Channel companies (TWCC) are made up of The Weather Channel® television network, The Weather Channel digital properties, and WSI. The Weather Channel is based in Atlanta and is seen in more than 100 million U.S. households. TWCC also operates Weatherscan®, a 24-hour all-local weather network; The Weather Channel Radio Network; and The Weather Channel HD. The most popular source of weather news and information, TWCC properties reach 60 million monthly Web consumers (weather.com and Desktop) and 32 million monthly mobile users (mobile Web and applications) and offers the second most popular mobile app on all smartphones. WSI, headquartered in Andover, MA, primarily provides business-to-business weather services, particularly for the media, aviation, marine and energy sectors. TWCC is owned by a consortium made up of NBC Universal and the private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. For more information, visitwww.weather.com/press. About Weather Underground The world's first online weather service, Weather Underground is committed to delivering the most comprehensive, reliable weather information possible. Home to more than 21 million users and weather provider to partners such as Google, The Associated Press and CBS, the company's state-of-the-art technology monitors conditions and forecasts for locations across the world. With more than 19,000 users contributing local observations from personal weather stations, Weather Underground is able to provide up-to-the-minute weather conditions for the most finely targeted areas. In addition to serving free online weather information to millions of unique users every month, Weather Underground delivers custom-designed weather page solutions to an array of businesses and media clients - both online and in print. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilkesboroDude Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 How will the merger with The Weather Channel improve wunderground? The Weather Channel is committed to keeping the Weather Underground brand and the web site in its current form. Weather Underground CEO Alan Steremberg will remain in charge, and our meteorologists and developers will continue to create the ground-breaking weather products that we're renowned for. The plan is to make both wunderground.com and weather.com stronger, by sharing content and infrastructure. Many Weather Underground features, such as our Personal Weather Station data, WunderMap, and my blog, are scheduled to also appear on the weather.com web site in the coming months. My blog's main home will continue to be wunderground.com, and I have been asked to continue to write the same variety of science-based posts on hurricanes, extreme weather, and climate change that I've provided since 2005. I enjoy communicating weather science, and am pleased I will be able to do this for both wunderground and The Weather Channel, which has an audience about three times as large as wunderground's. http://classic.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Surprised this didn't happen sooner....guess it's not "underground" anymore...sigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocala Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 That stinks. I would like to think TWC won't rape the site but time will tell. I mean it really wouldn't do any good to have 2 weather.com sites so hopefully it stays the way it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 That stinks. I would like to think TWC won't rape the site but time will tell. I mean it really wouldn't do any good to have 2 weather.com sites so hopefully it stays the way it is. Well since they're going to integrate both sites, one would think eventually going to wunderground.com will only be a redirect to the "newly improved" weather.com!! haha. We'll see I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 I like the Weather Underground 'Wundermap' that nicely graphically shows the local Personal Weather Stations in all areas of the country on the map. You can also click on the local to get details. Hopefully, the purchase by The Weather Channel will not discontinue this valuable functionality that is appreciated. The 'Rapid Fire' observations is also appreciated and valued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueheronNC Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 I just hope they don't remove the ability to get NWS forecasts on the site (like on weather.com). It's bad enough that Wunderground introduced that Best Forecast drivel which is a joke. During the summer convective season, telling me my expected precip. for the day is 0.4 inches is meaningless when it's gonna be either someone getting 1.5-2 inches or being left completely dry. Also, their temp. algorithm is bogus - when CLT's all-time high is 104 and it was spitting out 109-111 in advance of tye heatwave, it leaves a lot to be desired. NWS has local forecast offices for a reason, and there's no way to replicate the experience and targeted knowledge an office brings to a particular area. I don't get why these national entities think they can forecast as well without the added benefit. I understand the profit motive incents proprietary products, but when that product is no good, just give it a rest and go with what works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NEGa Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 well that sucks. guess wxunderground will no longer be on my book mark list nor my must read list. twc sucks. when it first came out it was awesome. now they have dumbed it down and commercialized it, and are so wrong i havent looked at it in years. this is horrible news i would take this heat for the rest of the summer rather than have twc destroy wxunderground lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 I can tell you that the people that own personal weather stations that send data to WU are keeping a close eye on this. Many have already said that if things start changing, they will quit sending data to them . I sent an email to the Weather Channel a day or two ago telling them the same thing. WU is for weather geeks and mets, TWC is for grandma and grandpa or anyone with little to no weather intelligence. If they screw with it, all the people that they so desperately wanted to bring into their fold will leave. Time will tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCWX Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 I see TWC as I see MTV. It used to be great. Now it's worthless junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wow Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 Wow.. that's a terrible move by WU. I don't think grandma and grandpa who watch TWC care enough about WU's resources geared to weather geeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilkesboroDude Posted July 4, 2012 Author Share Posted July 4, 2012 I am remaining optimistic. I would like to see some change. Wunderground is amazing. But lacks overall visual appeal. Weather.com could really use their data and blogs by Dr. Jeff Masters to provide more quality material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wow Posted July 5, 2012 Share Posted July 5, 2012 I am remaining optimistic. I would like to see some change. Wunderground is amazing. But lacks overall visual appeal. Weather.com could really use their data and blogs by Dr. Jeff Masters to provide more quality material. Oh yes, TWC could certainly use WU's resources, but the second Al Roker's face starts popping up all over WU's website, let grumblings and eyerolls commence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocala Posted July 5, 2012 Share Posted July 5, 2012 I am remaining optimistic. I would like to see some change. Wunderground is amazing. But lacks overall visual appeal. Weather.com could really use their data and blogs by Dr. Jeff Masters to provide more quality material. Trying to remain optimistic as well but I'm not holding out much hope. As for the visual appeal we really don't need it. We are more X's and O's while the TWC crowd needs the eye candy to stay interested. And for Masters blog I doubt they would have a clue what he's talking about. I can see it now. "Marge! What the hell is a occluded front". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jburns Posted July 5, 2012 Share Posted July 5, 2012 I can see it now. "Marge! What the hell is a occluded front". I thought oClude was the Microsoft version of iCloud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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