Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Director's Alert: NBC Pulling the Plug on Weather Plus

We knew this one was coming with NBC's recent purchase of "The Weather Channel." Today, it was confirmed. NBC Weather Plus is shutting down.

Four years ago, NBC formed a partnership with local affilate stations to launch the first digital 24/7 tv channel called "Weather Plus." On cable and on digital subchannels of NBC stations, you can the channel that was developed with its unique "L" bar that provided local weather in a way that was different than "The Weather Channel."

As the local partner for Cleveland, WKYC is given so many minutes per hour to do local cut-ins that our weather team of Betsy Kling, Hollie Strano, Bruce Kalinowski and A.J. Colby bring you 24/7. Plus, it was a place where you could always find our local Xband and Nexrad radars in real time.

Our sources say that NBC News President Steve Capus told the "Weather Plus" staff Tuesday morning that the network would shut down before the end of the year.

What will this mean for WKYC, we'll see. There are many avenues we can follow to continue bringing Clevelanders the best local weather over the air, on-line and through mobile platforms we are currently developing.

And with NBC's ownership of "The Weather Channel", might we expect our local meteorologists showing up for appearances? Stay tuned.