The Weather Channel Rolls Out New Initiatives as It Looks Back on Its First 40 Years

In the 40 days leading up to its big 4-0 on May 2, The Weather Channel is releasing a new piece of content each day -- on linear, digital or social.

On April 20, The Weather Channel meteorologist Tevin Wooten took to social media to ask viewers to make short :15 videos introducing themselves and sharing their favorite memories for a chance to appear on the channel. Viewer-submitted content will be paired with an interstitial series featuring memories from anchors, like Wooten, across the channel.

Further, The Weather Channel is returning to promos of years past, including a comedic one that features beach-goers seeing anchor Jim Cantore and running from him in terror due to his typical coverage of terrible weather. The series also features some fun blooper reels from days gone by.

But while The Weather Channel is having fun with the celebration its teams have their eyes focused on the excitement ahead as they plan what the network will look like in the next 40 years.

The channel recently made several announcements regarding expansions. In March, The Weather Channel and CBS News disclosed that they were in partnership to "bring enhanced weather and climate reporting to CBS News viewers around the world."

The partnership with CBS News made sense for both brands, said Nora Zimmett, President, News and Original Series, The Weather Group. Since Allen Media Group acquired The Weather Group in 2018, The Weather Channel has emphasized covering climate change and sustainability -- two issues around which CBS News wanted to bolster its own coverage.

"A YouGov poll recently named The Weather Channel the U.S.'s No. 1 most trusted news source, followed by PBS and BBC," Zimmett noted. "CBS has the same brand equity but has not traditionally delved into weather, so we thought a partnership was very natural. We can tell stories from a science perspective and rely on the journalism chops of CBS to delve into climate issues."

In May, The Weather Channel is launching two new services: a subscription-based Weather Channel app and first-ever U.S. Spanish-language weather service. Leading up to that, they debuted a new two-hour daily show titled Pattrn on the linear channel, borrowing from their social-media brand of the same name, which debuted in 2018. Pattrn is also available as a free ad-supported streaming television channel.

Another part of the continued expansion at The Weather Channel is Immersive Mixed Reality (IMR) technology providing audiences with a "virtual view" into different weather conditions in communities across the country as that weather develops.

"Before we started our augmented reality about six years ago, weather presentation had not changed since the first days of TV," Zimmett recalled. "We thought that there had to be another way to explain weather to people, so they feel they're a part of it. We're not just telling them what's going to happen; we are showing them. Everything we had previously done as an industry was in two dimensions, but it never fully captured the story."

On The Weather Channel's 40th birthday it will launch a new direct-to-consumer subscription-based app. It also will launch The Weather Channel en Español, which will be the first 24/7 weather service programmed specifically for Spanish-language speakers in the U.S.

"This is something that has not been done in the U.S.," said Suzanne Ruiz, Editor-in-Chief, The Weather Channel en Español. "Hispanics will now be able to access region-specific content -- in Spanish. Our viewers in the U.S. are going to be able to have and use this for free across top streaming platforms."

For Hispanics in particular this information is critically important, especially when dangerous weather is hitting their families in other parts of the world, such as a hurricane cutting through the Caribbean.

"Weather hits our families hard," Ruiz said. "This is going to be a source for us to get information and stay connected to our loved ones."

"It's amazing how much weather affects some of the largest populations of Spanish speakers in this country," Zimmett asserted. "The top-10 states affected by billion-dollar disasters have the highest ratios of Spanish-speaking people. And climate change is making everything worse."

At launch, The Weather Channel en Español will be available on YouTube TV and on Weather Group's Local Now app, with more distribution expected to follow. In addition, The Weather Channel is working with the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to issue weather alerts in Spanish, something that currently does not exist.

Looking ahead, besides the IMR technology and overall content expansion, The Weather Channel is working to bring viewers personalized weather forecasts that are so precise they will help them plan their mornings at home walking the dog as well as their afternoons traveling across town.

"Imagine a world in which all of that was orchestrated to take the guesswork out of my day so I could fine tune all of my activities based on weather guidance," Zimmett concluded. "We are fast forwarding our technology to meet the needs of our viewers, creating a personalized and customized experience."

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