Jim Marusak Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 i heard somewhere that there was talk they wanted to consolidate all the video production to Atlanta instead of most in Atlanta and some in NYC, as NYC studio space costs a ton, which would make some sense. but I hope between the morning shows and the reality shows, that's all the cost cutting they do. But i do have to wonder though, just as a bit of a "way out there" thought. right now, TWC/Comcast owns like 40% of Pelmorex Media/The Weather Network in Canada. And I do remember something a while ago on a Weatherbrains episode where they featured a couple of people from up there in Oakville, ON. And one of them didn't leave out the possibility of extending their reach into the US, even if it's in competition with The Weather Channel. What about the possibility of maybe Pelmorex/The Weathernetwork being allowed to purchase The Weather Channel, using as the down payment the 40% that is currently owned by their US counterparts, taking it out of Comcast's portfolio? Can you say JIm Cantore meets the "Wreckhouse" region of Newfoundland? as I said, way out of there and not anything I have heard from my friends that are still up there (if anything, they might think I might be nuts as well if they hear this. Well, TWC continues to hold a niche market on television and it has very few or no viable competitors in its own sector. It's very possible for TWC to survive or even prosper. Here is another problem for the Weather Channel, ESPN has exclusive rights to many sporting events. The Weather Channel obviously doesn't have exclusive rights to the weather. One thing that has been left unsaid is the increase of weather coverage on the local TV markets. If you looked at a local TV weather report in the early 1980's and compare it to today, it is the difference between night and day. btw, I know my remark the other day was more than a bit out there. but what i didn't do in my original post and will do now is explain my reasoning. Over the last several years, as you know there's been a lot of acquisitions and mergers in the weather industry. You had TWC/WSI buying Weather Underground, you had Accu-Weather buying Weatherdata, Iteris bought the company in Grand Forks, NextEra Energy bought WindLogics, and several other domestic acquisitions. But some overlooked m&a activity and business has been by foreign companies. Weathernews has been in OK for a while, but is based as a conglomerate in Japan. Meteorlogix/DTN was bought by Schneider Electric, which is based in Germany. Ubimet, based in Austria, has opened an office recently in NYC (a friend of mine from Toronto is a manager there) Fugro, based over in the Netherlands, has offices in the US Impact Weather and Applied Weather Technologies were bought by StormGeo, based in Norway and several companies are making the pitch into the US from New Zealand and the UK. so it isn't unprecedented for foreign companies to come into the US meteorological services market recently. And given that the BBC just got rid of MetOffice for the weather presentations, and the Weather Channel having broadcast assets in the UK, Latin and South America, and other portions of Europe, it wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing to try to get into those markets, as well as the US, in acquiring TWC (especially potentially on the cheap, depending on how bad Bain and Blackstone want to get rid of their shares in the company) . And why I thought TWN/Pelmorex in Oakville is possible, because from a TV standpoint, they have a more stable revenue base to get the loans necessary make the acquisition. And there were some hints at maybe they'd want to expand their client base into the USA, so why not TWC? Also, if they wanted to take a run at the BBC contract, the brits would be more likely to accept Canadian companies for their broadcasts instead of American ones, given that Canada still is part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. And you have to admit, with the US business in Atlanta and the Canadian business based in Oakville (a suburb of Toronto, easily accessible) and Montreal; that would be a good potential to have a media lock all across North America, much bigger than WeatherNation or Accu-weather could ever dream of. merge in the data fields from each country's forecasters, maybe merge the radars as well, add some cross-border storm coverage, and maybe helping a bit in the commercial side to take on AMEC out of St Johns, NF, might not be the worst fit in the world. now will it happen, not that sure. but the business case might be there for Pelmorex to take a shot, if they wanted to. anyone think of any other mergers/acquisitions that would be possible here, and not run afowl with the regulators? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Global_Warmer Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 I would absolutly watch TWC if they dedicated time to each model run and explained what was going on at a more detailed level. If I ran the company. I would look into running some specials on climatology and weather technology. Also have a daily segment about the OPI and SAI. A lot more ENSO talk. Just do it up right. The viewership already sucks. For everyone active poster on the thousands of weather forums and blogs in the USA there are that many more readers who are afraid to post because they don't know jack about meteorology. Nobody needs TWC in 2015. But if they tracked weather like it was a sport. I bet their ratings would rise. Just an aside. Some of the images I post between two forums about sea ice off my imgur account have 5000-7000 views. The images I post in the global temp thread have 300. Our local weather forum out of St. Louis has 315 members. The creator is Chris Higgins. A local tv met and Air Force reserve met. Local tv legend Dave Murray posts rarely. At least two nws mets post there. Another met who posts here and there lives near St Louis. And there are 2-3 more retired mets on the forum. In the last 24 hours there was 300 people online. 250 guests. 42 members. In a 24 hour period in February 300 members were online and 1500+ guests. Mr. Higgins has said we have had closer to 10K visitors in one week. We had to move to proboarss because hosting costs kept rising. This is a local forum. There are fans and fanatics. Weather is still an event that dictates all life on Earth. There is definitely an audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rygar Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 Could you imagine great weather info without the personality problems we can sometimes experience at americanwx... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsentropicLift Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 Call up Paul Kocin and beg him to come back. Then go out and try to get back some of the other good talent that has left over the years, including Dr. Steve Lyons. Neither one of them are required to be there full time, but it would be great to have Paul give updates during high impact Winter weather events such as Noreasters' and Dr. Lyons during times of high end tropical threats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrgjeff Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 TWC is still incredible on severe weather days when they tie in with chasers and broadcast webstreams live. Marry TV with the Internet. If they do more of that, I think TWC can rebound. In the 80s and 90s I'd have it on for hours, even if just in the background. I have not watched it much since about 2000. However on an outbreak day I still have TWC on for hours while I track stuff on my own computer. It is the next best thing to chasing when one can't get out or it is just too far. TWC plus tracking is remarkably fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbs Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 I always thought that AM Weather had a great program on PBS some 30 years ago. It was a great high level overview of the daily weather for the day, all with less than 30 minutes to work with. Imagine what TWC could do using an approach like this, expanded with today’s technology, in full HD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxdude64 Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 I always thought that AM Weather had a great program on PBS some 30 years ago. It was a great high level overview of the daily weather for the day, all with less than 30 minutes to work with. Imagine what TWC could do using an approach like this, expanded with today’s technology, in full HD! I watched that EVERY morning it was on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 WeatherBrains just interviewed Dave Clark, president of the TV side of TWC. Good discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midatlanticweather Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violentweatherfan Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Does this mean when AMWX does a radio show we'll be able to watch and listen...man I can't wait to see Katodog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkeye_wx Posted September 19, 2015 Share Posted September 19, 2015 Thanks for the link to Weatherbrains. That was very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeznado Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-28/ibm-agrees-to-acquire-weather-channel-s-digital-assets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTWXRISK Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 I dont get this -- so the web site weather com COULD have a forecast for NYC (for example) 2 days from now is SUNNY while the the cable weather channel could say snow ? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-28/ibm-agrees-to-acquire-weather-channel-s-digital-assets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeznado Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 I dont get this -- so the web site weather com COULD have a forecast for NYC (for example) 2 days from now is SUNNY while the the cable weather channel could say snow ? Most times no, if you read the article the IBM weather data is being bought by the TWC network, so the forecasts should usually be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.