| I wanted to post the news freesong posted as its own post: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/weather-underground-bought-by-ibm I missed that news. That's going to be weird, with digital assets (like Weather.com and Weather Underground) and The Weather Channel being two separate companies. I wonder what will happen with WUTV. I don't get TWC any more due to Verizon dropping them here, so I don't know how things have changed so far, but I imagine things will change quite a bit soon. The digital assets were the moneymaker. I imagine there will be layoffs at the network. But I don't know how they will separate. They share everything now. TWC shows clips people submit online of weather events. If you submit something to TWC through Weather.com it would then be a totally different company. TWC did a lot more social media stuff on air. That came through their digital properties and social media accounts. I guess whatever licensing agreement they have would likely be very far reaching since everything is quite integrated. Maybe there would not be too many changes in that regard, but having on air meteorologists still appear online would be odd with it being a different company. Although I am not sure who is going with what. Where would Jim Cantore be employed for example? One, both, or one licensed to the other? With licensing it could be seamless, but I don't see how it makes sense long term. It seems like the current TWC owners just wanted to make some money short term which doesn't bode well for the network which doesn't do as great. The Weather Channel's website will no longer be their website. Imagine a news network like CNN for example. What would it be like to make the online website and the channel be a part of two different companies? It's just weird. But given TWC made a lot of their money from the web, I think it has to mean big changes for the network with less money coming in. More cable providers might drop them. Not that there is any good substitute. I have AccuWeather here and it is awful. It has local weather on screen, but everything else nationally is someone in front of a green screen at best. I don't think anything is live. (If there was tornado outbreak I don't know what happens, I've never tuned in.) I never visit except to see sometimes if it is still around. I hope Weather Underground doesn't change. I don't really visit Weather.com much, it's part weather but also part anything else they want to throw in, but I do visit Weather Underground a lot. TWC thankfully didn't change WU when they bought them, but I don't know about this time. I don't see that kind of assurance this time. |