If you’re working for the Weather Channel, look out for the falling ax. Kristi Swartz at the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:
Weather Channel lays off staff
The Weather Channel, which NBC Universal bought in September, has laid off some of its staff. It is unclear how many people were cut or whether they are receiving a severance package.
NBC Universal and Weather Channel officials would not comment beyond a statement.
“The economic realities of recent months have created challenges for everyone in our business. In addition, when NBC Universal purchased the Weather Channel earlier this year, we expected that there would be cost synergies as part of company reorganization. While it is always difficult to lose valued employees, we are doing our best to minimize the impact, and remain committed to providing the highest quality content that our viewers have come to expect from the Weather Channel.”
h/t to TVSpy
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They’ll all get transferred to MSNBC where they’ll feel right at home.
Actually, NBC already runs “Weatherplus” as a digital sub-channel on OTA (Over The Air) television. I’m in Toronto, and can get almost all the Buffalo digitals free with an indoor antenna (YES, including glorious HD)… of course it does help that I’m in a 6th-storey condo with a clear view towards Buffalo. I get so many stations free I don’t bother with cable. One of the stations I get is NBC’s WGRZ, which is currently carrying Weatherplus.
On a Canadian TV-related web-forum, it was posted a while ago that NBC will be killing the free OTA Weatherplus channel as of December to concentrate on Weather Channel, which is a pay-TV channel. So it looks like they’re combining the Weatherplus and Weather Channel staff, and will obviously have too many bodies. This would be the case even without the current economic powerdive.
Years ago when biz travel was big for me, I always turned to TWC. Any time, any city, I got what I needed to pack and schedule. Loved it. Kept watching just to see what all my friends & family were having for weather.
Lately, turn on TWC for weather report: get history of some old hurricane. Try later, AGW nag. Try later, When Weather Changed History. Try Later, commercials. Didn’t try later…
Now I only look to The Weather Channel for weather during business hours and only if an internet site isn’t available. Google is my friend 😉 (Sell NBC stock, buy Google stock…) I also have trouble thinking how accurate weather can come from a station that believes it’s getting warmer (AGW) when it’s clearly colder (2008). Credibility damaged, change channel…
I’d love an Acu Weather station. They have their head on straight and understand that accurate weather is all that matters, not PCness. AGW thesis didn’t match reality, they chucked it.
Bobby Lane said:
Understanding the past to better predict the future, Mr. Gore? That hardly seems your strong suit, as inconvenient of a truth as that may be.
end quote.
Spot on! Especially given that the Maya collapse, while spread over a few hundred years, is largely coincident with the Migration Era Pessimum that is itself largely coincident with Bond Event 1.
I find it fascinating that Al Gore would site the Maya when they are most likely evidence for a 1500 year solar cycle causing civilization collapse… them and the western Roman Empire => dark ages at the same time.
(The Migration Era Pessimum is the name of the cold time that came just after the Roman Warm Period or Roman Optimum. We now live in the Modern Optimum. I vote for calling the coming cold era the Al Gore Pessimum …)
Shocker that all these liberal hack channels, newspapers , etc. are laying off people. Maybe all their global warming BS programs just weren’t a rating booster.
FYI
General Electric owns 80% of NBC Universal. GE is invested heavily in windmills and solar energy. MSNBC is heavily invested in President-elect Obama (e.g., Chris Matthews. ‘I felt this thrill going up my leg’). Is this a conflict of interest.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1969764/posts
GE’s stock was at record lows before the stock market collapse last October. GE is to big to fail? I smell another bailout once the democrats take control of the White House and Congress.
Pete (15:28:40) :
“Won’t the fairness doctrine kill AGW?
…since the contrarian view on CO2 will have to be presented with equal veracity.”
The “Fairness” Doctrine is unilateral.
I vote for calling the coming cold era the Al Gore Pessimum
I have already taken to calling it the Gore Minimum, although the two syllable Maunder & Dalton precedents tend to favor Hansen Minimum. Should the Thames freeze again, we should force them both to sit on it with bare bottoms.
Now THAT’S a mental picture I did NOT need! You owe me a keyboard!!
TWC could use some deadwood culling, like Heidi Cullen, who should be decertified by AMS for pushing AGW propaganda. Well, I can dream, can’t I.
tarpon (11:26:27) :
“Nothing useful left on the weather channel anyway. ..”
‘back in the day’ the weather channel was essential viewing for me. It was on virtually all the time, and I would actually TAPE IT if there was some weather ‘event’ nearby. Now, I NEVER watch it. If I need the local weather, I’ll get it off the web. WILL NOT turn on the weather channel.
And speaking of “local weather”…
You may have noticed they have “weather reports” for all sorts of little places now…
…you may have wondered whose weather station is installed in Cuspidor, East Turnip, Horseface Creek, etc.
Answer: THERE ISN’T A WEATHER STATION
Those “observations” are extracted from a computer analysis of what the temperature “should” be at those locations. Except for the actual airport observations, “Your Local Weather” on the weather channel is mostly phoney baloney.
You may also have noticed that the seven day forecasts are a joke. Those are also 100% computer-generated.
Real human being weather forecasters at the National Weather Service use computer-generated predictions as a STARTING POINT, which is then refined using human intelligence and experience to create a real weather forecast.
At the weather channel, raw computer projections are presented to the public unrefined, as a seven-day forecast.
kim (12:31:59) :
” How about Heidi? I note she’s by way of NCAR out of Columbia where her research interest was the North Atlantic Oscillation. I wonder if she’s wondering. Or wandering. ”
=====================================
Don’t worry about heidi. she’ll have a good new job in January.
“I hope they cancel those lame hurricane reporters who bring absolutly nothing to the table except misconceptions.”
It’s been years since I paid any attention to TWC, but I still respect Jim Cantore’s reporting from, e.g. Kill Devil Hills.
It was pretty dramatic in 1992 when Andrew passed directly over the HQ of the Hurricane Center with TWC reporters hunkering down on the lee side.
‘‘I felt this thrill going up my leg’
Sounds like a twelve-year-old describing a new physiological experience.
How much do you want to bet that the folks laid off from The Weather Channel are those who refused to agree with this whole “green” crap that the leftie whackos are spewing from their non-existent brains?
My guess is that once “N”othing “B”ut “C”rap bought The Weather Channel, those who worked there were given a “quiz”. One (or more likely, many) of the questions probably had to do with global warming and their feelings and beliefs.
People. Wake up. Did you watch “Expelled” by Ben Stein? This screwed up world we live in is being taken over by fruitcake liberal whackjobs. You cant disagree with them or you are a “non-believer” but GOD HELP YOU if you want to speak to them about your religious beliefs……. they dont want to hear it and will SUE YOU to get you to stop.
I think its about time people start forcing the shutdown of this green shit. I, for one, and probably for THOUSANDS upon thousands are SICK OF IT. And I dont want to hear anymore bull crap green this or green that anymore.
My toenail fell of. Lets blame it on global warming!!!!!!!! Asswipes.
Walter Dnes (20:42:06) :
“Actually, NBC already runs “Weatherplus” as a digital sub-channel on OTA (Over The Air) television…”
Now that NBC has the weather channel, Weather Plus (which was never profitable) is being shut down.
“…Shortly after the acquisition of The Weather Channel on October 8, 2008, NBC announced that Weather Plus would be shut down by the end of 2008…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Weather_Plus
They should just pull the plug and take it off the air. I stopped watching about 8 years ago, and I couldn’t care less about its fate.
From rhodeymark (06:41:58) :
I have already taken to calling it the Gore Minimum, although the two syllable Maunder & Dalton precedents tend to favor Hansen Minimum. Should the Thames freeze again, we should force them both to sit on it with bare bottoms.
end quote
Gurk! Resolve, never read blog again while drinking coffee. You owe me shirt!
Seriously (sort of) the ‘minimum’ and ‘pessimum’ are two different things. One is sunspots (minimum) the other is temperature/climate (cold). They each get a different name. While I prefer that the present minimum be called the Landscheidt Minimum in honor of the guy who predicted it; there is a certain charm to the set of “Hansen Minimum / AlGore Pessimum”…
Unfortunately, the actual names will be assigned by politically connected committees of scientists with little sense of irony…
Eddy Minimum; Jack Eddy liked words.
=======================
GE has been in the toilet ever since Jack Welch left. Maybe even before.
I was sort of hoping that our gal Heidi would lose her certification or whatever papers she holds. Not a chance though, only the hard working and honest ones will get hit.
Hmmm, not sure if this is true.
In a way, kind of sorry if it is. Where else will I go for my nuts&berries climate howlers?
BTW, caught a puff piece on CNBC today. They were interviewing the head of the the cable unit of NBC and bragging about how great they were doing. Mostly with some network named “Oxygen”, but for some reason, they didn’t mention the recent TWC acquisition.
Ain’t it grand when the media get to “report” on themselves?
Rats, wrong link.
Here’s the right one.
(Whew, better watch what I paste in! 🙂