Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

EDITOR'S NOTE: Former WKYC weatherman Al Roker is on the move again. Man does he stay busy! ----- Al Roker, widely recognized as America's favorite weatherman, has been named host of Wake Up With Al, a new weekday morning program on The Weather Channel. Roker will join The Weather Channel's Stephanie Abrams, who will serve as his co-host. The announcement was made today by Lisa Gersh, interim CEO of The Weather Channel. The one-hour program will air weekdays from 6-7 a.m. ET and premiere this summer. "Simply put - Al Roker is synonymous with weather. He has an energy and a style that jumps off the screen, and we already know that people want to wake up with him in the morning," said Gersh. "We have spent months coming up with the right way to integrate Al into The Weather Channel's programming, and I think, alongside Stephanie, we've come up with the perfect formula with this announcement." Wake Up with Al will explore all aspects of the day'...

NBC Universal and two partners said Sunday they have reached a deal to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications Inc., ending a drawn-out process that had attracted interest from several major media companies. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity said the purchase price was $3.5 billion in cash. NBC was joined in the deal by the private equity firms The Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC. In addition to The Weather Channel, which can be seen by 97 percent of U.S. cable subscribers, the deal also includes several related assets such as weather services for newspapers and radio stations and the widely used Web site Weather.com. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., became the sole bidder for The Weather Channel last month after Time Warner Inc. dropped out. CBS Corp. and cable industry leader Comcast Corp. had also expressed interest earlier. NBC already operates a digital weather and news service...

Media trade publications are reporting today that Landmark Communications is putting its high profile network, "The Weather Channel," on the auction block - and NBC is licking its lips. The New York Times says, "Among the Weather Channel's suitors, NBC is expected to compete aggressively, people involved in the auction said. NBC has a weather-related unit called NBC Weather Plus, a joint project of NBC News and NBC affiliates, but the venture has never taken off. NBC Weather Plus includes a cable channel, frequently available only on digital cable platforms and high on the dial, along with a Web site, weatherplus .com ." "The Weather Channel" has a staff of 800 employees; 125 are meteorologists. This could make for an interesting marriage between NBC and a network that at one time was seen as a fledgling network that was not going to make it. But it did and has remained as one of the last remaining independent cable networks not goggled up by big medi...

Former Weather Channel and hometown Meteorologist Bruce Kalinowski will be joining the WKYC Weather Plus forecasting team. The Director's Cut Blog has learned that Bruce will be teaming up with Betsy Kling, Hollie Strano and AJ Colby to become a station meteorologist. Bruce will be mainly seen on our weekend newscasts and filling in as needed for Hollie, Betsy and AJ. Bruce has been working in the local market for the past 8 years... first at the CBS affiliate and now at WKYC. Prior to that, Bruce was a familiar face on "The Weather Channel" under the name of Bruce Edwards from 1982 until 2000. Bruce and Andre Bernier were the very first on camera meteorologists to be seen by viewers when the Weather Channel launched on May 2, 1982 at 8 PM. (To watch video of that launch: CLICK HERE ) Bruce also worked for a time at our Gannett sister station, WTLV/WJXX in Jacksonville, Florida. We always knew Bruce was from Cleveland, cause he always referred to us at the "Best Loca...