History of The Weather Channel

The history of The Weather Channel in the United States dates to around 1980.

Pre-launch

The Weather Channel was the brainchild of former WLS-TV Chicago chief meteorologist and Good Morning America forecaster John Coleman, who took his idea to Landmark's then-chief Frank Batten.

A major part of the plan for the new network was that it would be able to provide localized weather information to its viewers. This was done through WeatherSTAR units located at each cable company's headend. These WeatherSTARs were able to insert local conditions, forecasts, and warnings over the national feed.

On 30 July 1981, The Weather Channel, Inc. was founded in Atlanta, Georgia

The launch: May 2, 1982

The Weather Channel went on the air on May 2, 1982. The channel reported the weather and other meteorological information for the United States as well as other countries and regions of the world. TWC originally gathered its national region forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its local forecasts from local National Weather Service offices.

The original Weather Star I model was quickly upgraded to the Weather Star II when it began to interfere with the channel 2 signal at the cable headend. The Weather Star III upgrade improved the hardware somewhat and came about 1987.

You Need Us: 1986 - January 1991

In 1986, The Weather Channel unveiled its first major image campaign and slogan, "You Need Us For Everything You Do". A full one-minute lyrical theme was created, but rarely aired - the shorter version was more commonly seen. 1989 saw the remixing of the theme. Also in 1989, Prime Time Tonight, a 3-minute video cable guide that appears every 27 times from 7:57pm to 11:27pm was introduced.

1990 saw the introduction of the first Weather Star 4000 models in a text-based system similar to the Weather Star III. In-STAR radar was introduced in June of that year, and graphical backgrounds were introduced in July, making TWC history by being the first STARs to generate graphics and the first to feature the TWC logo in the forecast. Also in 1990, The Weather Channel included snow condition reports at 5 minutes after the hour.

Weather You Can Always Turn To: March 6, 1991 - October 1996

Largely considered the height of the classic TWC by enthusiasts, The Weather Channel underwent a major graphic revamp with its new banner slogan being "Weather You Can Always Turn To" on 6 March 1991. Graphic elements include heavy use of gradients and the Caxton typeface. July 3 brought The Weather Channel Connection, a 1-900 service for obtaining weather information. Originally 1-900-288-8800,it moved to 1-900-WEATHER in 1992 and used its phone number as its name. On 1 November, The Weather Channel filed for a trademark on TWC, a common shortening of the name that was even seen on air.

By 1993, 90% of cable households received The Weather Channel.

On 10 January 1994, TWC placed an order for 1,000 Weather Star Jr units with Wegener Communications, which builds equipment for cable headends. The Star Jr. is a budget model in the Weather Star line.

1995 brought a variety of changes to TWC, setting the stage for more changes in 1996. Minor graphical tweaks were made. The Short Term Forecasts from the National Weather Service were introduced to Local Forecasts as the Local Update (which in turn destabilized flavor lineups and caused the discontinuation of narration). The 30-Day Outlook was discontinued by the National Weather Service (which required TWC to discontinue the product). New program introductions included WeatherScope (top/bottom of the hour weather discussion) was introduced and a special on how weather affected Pearl Harbor on December 7. The music of Trammell Starks, used on Weatherscan and emergency cases since 2000, premiered at the end of the year.

Live By It and complete changes: June 2001 - August 14, 2005

September 2001 saw the Weather Star XL get refreshed for the first time. Changes included improved maps, title bars, and graphical elements. TWC introduced its "Live By It" slogan.

In April 2002, what happened the previous year on Weatherscan hit the Weather Stars: The NWS forecasts were out. As NWS bulletins/warnings were in the old forecasts, a Weather Bulletins page displays the applicable watches, warnings, and advisories (on the 4000, The Weather Channel does send NWS Bulletins to appear in the text-based local forecast, as the 4000 does not feature the Weather Bulletins slide). May 2002 brought TWC's 20th anniversary; to celebrate, a special was aired, and a book was published by Harvard Business Press, The Weather Channel: The Improbable Rise of a Media Phenomenon (ISBN 978-1-57851-559-2), written by TWC founder Frank Batten and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.

The first long form programs arrived at The Weather Channel to begin 2003, with Storm Stories being the first program that was not weather or a documentary-type special. Also in 2003, Live By It was refreshed slightly. Weatherscan received a new design in February and moved to a modern STAR platform, known as the IntelliStar. The FreeBSD-based IntelliStar is more flexible than the IRIX-based Star XL for updates. Plans to revive The Front as a weather discussion board were proposed and scrapped that year.

2004 saw the introduction and decommissioning of STARs. The IntelliStar made its way to TWC from Weatherscan. The Weather Star III was removed from service when DTMF tone and weather warning regulations were not being met. In October 2004, the United States Postal Service and TWC teamed up to create stamps depicting clouds and an accompanying "Cloudscapes" educational campaign - aimed at kids in grades 3 through 5 - about reading clouds to tell of pending weather conditions sent to 200,000 educators around the US, unveiled at Boston, Massachusetts' Blue Hill Observatory.

In early 2005, The Weather Channel announced a major refresh - its first new logo in nine years, a new slogan, and other new elements - was to occur in August. The relaunch was part of a long-running effort aimed at reducing the network's dependence on "commodity" viewers (those looking for forecast information) and attracting what then-TWC president Patrick Scott calls "vitalists" (those with an active interest in weather) and "planners" using the channel to plan the week

Becoming an NBC-owned channel

The channel got more in the way of change a month later, as NBC Universal purchased the channel, weather.com, Weather Services International, a 30% stake in Canadian company Pelmorex, and miscellaneous other assets for $3.5 billion along with private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, from the family-owned Landmark Communications. Later, Landmark announced it was halting the sales of most of the other properties except for one newspaper. The Weather Channel was the only property sold by Landmark.

In November, like all NBC Universal properties, it joined the "Green is Universal" campaign for environmental awareness. The logo was turned green (normally done from master control on other networks) by sending an update to the IntelliStar to change the logo. Ironically, in the middle of "green week" (on November 20), The Weather Channel made major layoffs, described as cost synergies - three active on-camera meteorologists and one former one, the marketing department, the Road Crew (originally including Jeff Mielcarz, but Mielcarz then appeared on some weather.com video forecasts in December 2008), significant portions of the TWC Radio Network, and the Forecast Earth/environmental unit. (However, certain portions of the Forecast Earth unit remain with TWC.) The layoffs are took effect on November 30. (The Weather Channel later stated it would air other environmental programs.) With the shutdown of NBC Weather Plus, certain assets from Weather Plus (meteorologists and technology, specifically) have been rebranded as TWC assets with TWC-branded graphics. The NBC Weather Plus meteorologists continued based from NBC Universal headquarters at Rockefeller Center and appeared often on MSNBC until the 2009 closure of the entire division. TWC personalities and on-camera meteorologists, such as Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel, have appeared on NBC and MSNBC properties since the sale. One of the motives for the cuts was in order to aid a $500 billion budget cut at NBC Universal parent company General Electric; NBC Universal and CNBC have also made cuts.