The Weather Channel has a long history of creating partnerships with radio stations to air local weather. Now it seems that the Weather Channel is taking that same format to TV stations.
On Tuesday Rocky Mountain PBS became the first Weather Channel broadcast TV partner. Now when you tune into the Rocky Mountain PBS station you will see syndicated video clips covering local weather and local news into the breaks of its long-form TV stations.
“(Viewers) come to us to watch ‘NewsHour,’ to watch the ‘Nightly Business Report,’” said Laura Frank, RMPBS president and GM of news, “and if they want … local and breaking news, then they have to go away from us to get that.”
“This lets them stay with us for the content they’re already coming to us for and get more than they expected,” Frank said.
Viewers of RMPBS will see 30-second Local Now weather segments at 8:30 am, 9:30 am, and 10:30 am. They will also see 60-second daily news segments aired at 5:30 pm, 6:30 pm, and 7:00 pm.
This is the first of these deals, but the Weather Channel is hoping to roll these deals out to new markets. You could easily see smaller markets ditch the high cost of weather coverage in favor of a Weather Channel partnership. Soon you may see your local broadcast TV weather coverage replaced by Weather Channel coverage similarly to how many talk radio stations use the Weather Channel for their news breaks.
With dropping traditional pay-TV subscriptions it is easy to see why the Weather Channel would be looking at teaming up with local broadcast TV stations.
Source: Current
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