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Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios acquires The Weather Channel

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://www.fiercecable.com/video/byron-allen-s-entertainment-studios-acquires-weather-channel

Now Entertainment Studios have a deal to get The Weather Channel.

Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has acquired the Weather Group, parent company of The Weather Channel television network and Local Now streaming service.

Allen Media purchased the Weather Group from The Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and Comcast/NBCUniversal. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“The Weather Channel is one of the most trusted and extremely important cable networks, with information vitally important to the safety and protection of our lives,” said Allen in a statement. “We welcome The Weather Channel, which has been seen in American households for nearly four decades, to our cable television networks division. The acquisition of The Weather Channel is strategic, as we begin our process of investing billions of dollars over the next five years to acquire some of the best media assets around the world.”

"We are excited to join Entertainment Studios, and we are especially proud to be part of one of the largest emerging global media companies,” said Dave Shull, CEO of The Weather Channel, in a statement. “Byron Allen’s purchase of our innovative and forward-thinking organization will increase the value we bring to our viewers, distributors, and advertisers."
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I imagine it comes with some relatively new studios in Atlanta. The bad news is they won't have access to the NBC affiliate base or the studios and talent in the NBC stable, such as the Today Show's Al Roker. Although I think his role at TWC has decreased lately.
 
Should we expect a return to the pre-NBC emphasis on live weather and forecasts, or more of the long-form "weather entertainment," especially in prime time, that NBC is so bullish on, or no significant changes? The name of the buyer would certainly indicate less steak, more sizzle.
 
The $300M price tag demonstrates either that NBC was foolish to buy it in the first place and/or they are horrible asset managers.
 
I'm glad to hear this. Weather Underground likely goes with it as it is owned by The Weather Channel and has had many issues of late.

NBC has been way too bullish on reality TV really going out on a limb to relate a show somehow to weather. The issue has always been the small library of programs meaning a repeat is almost weekly for what seems like years ongoing.

The real issue with The Weather Channel, I suspect, is spot rate. In decent weather, the time spent and frequency in viewing has to make those cost per thousand ratios a nightmare in getting control of fixed costs. The non-weather reporting shows meant longer times spent viewing to bolster that spot rate. I get that. It's where live programming's line in the sand is that makes a difference. If Highway Thru Hell is on during a fairly isolated tornado outbreak in your backyard and all you get is scrolling warnings, you might be a bit miffed.

I can see a wide open door to evolving The Weather Channel to a happy medium of some reality shows and live forecasting. It might mean fewer 'features' to tone down costs and getting back to more of the Coleman days of The Weather Channel. That will likely mean more units per hour to make the cost per thousand work out but there has to be a way to make this unknown variable work against fixed costs.

And if Weather Underground goes with it, I'd be pleased. It must be frustrating at Weather Underground trying to get things done lately. In fact, it makes me think a sale has been in the works for a good while.
 
the idea of Bryon Allen's company buying out The Weather Channel beating out Sinclair, and big media companies like Time Warner (in the middle of a AT&T merger that may not even be completed due to AT&T and Time Warner making a enemy out of the government), the Walt Disney Company, New Fox (aka the company that will own Fox, FS1/FS2 and all other Fox assets not sold to Disney) and IBM (who bought out Weather.com and The Weather Company a while back) is weird.

i wonder if this buyout is Bryon Allen's way of making his networks a "must carry" for future retransmitting negotiations for The Weather Channel and all providers when the next contract to carry The Weather Channel expires.
 
b-turner said:
I'm glad to hear this. Weather Underground likely goes with it as it is owned by The Weather Channel and has had many issues of late.
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Wunderground and weather.com were sold to IBM a couple of years ago, so they are not a part of this sale.
 
I was not aware of that. Thanks for setting that straight. Weather Underground has had numerous issues over the past year. You can save 'favorites' of cities you choose. The favorites has not worked properly for a very long time. There are many other bugs that happen quite frequently (nope not the browser I'm using).

Weather Underground hyped a new forecasting model where the forecast is updated every quarter hour. They tout it as very accurate but in reality the forecast can go from one extreme to the other within an hour or two (ie: Mostly Cloudy with an 80% chance of thunderstorms expected by 1 pm to Sunny and breezy with less than a 10% chance of rain. I have seen that sort of change within 2 hours and it was sunny the whole time). The theory sounds good, that updated forecasting every 15 minutes would be ultra accurate but it is wrong most all of the time. Granted, when we expected stormy weather, there has been a time or two it was spot on, almost down to the minute. I'm not the weather geek sort, just outdoors at times and prefer to avoid freeway driving when the spray from the other vehicles obscures visibility to the point it is a white knuckle drive. And it's no fun being under a tower at the station with the engineer with a thunderstorm coming in as you hear the crackling sound of the charged air coming off the tower.
 
What really was the idea in buying it? There's his 8 cheap crap cable channels which don't even rate in terms of viewers and can't really be considered proper channels with the content they show. They don't even show proper TV programs dont they just cheap filler 'shows' produced by Entertainment Studios? and then there is The Weather Channel. Perfect match? What will happen with the shows like Highway Thru Hell, Why Planes Crash, Storm Stories etc that are shown on TWC. Will these still air or who owns the rights? Could shows that are still being produced like Highway Thru Hell go to other networks like Discovery/Nat Geo? Or could they air on his other cable 8 channels.
Why don't his cable channels air proper shows? There is cheap then there is cheap.
 
I didn't see Byron Allen buying The Weather Channel that was a shock to me I thought maybe bigger players like Disney, New Fox, CBS would have bought The Weather Channel. I know Fox was interested in buying The Weather Channel about a decade ago along with NBC.
 
Don CT said:
Weather.com content still controlled by the weather channel is it not? Or is it under license now?
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Weather.com is owned by IBM.
 
Weather.com has serious issues and has for months. I emailed support that said they were aware of it and unfortunately it was not an easy fix. So, I took that email to say things might not be so rosy at weather.com

I think The Weather Channel needs some work. The shows are not horrible in non-prime hours but they repeat at least every few days and the frequency you can catch the weather is very minimal in those programs...at least each commercial break versus a couple of times an hour.
 
http://deadline.com/2018/04/byron-allen-landmark-theatres-sale-entertainment-studios-1202367755/

Now here is a Followup on Byron Allen. Now theres talks for Byron Allen to get Landmark theaters.

News broke yesterday that Netflix was looking at the chain at one point, however, we understand those talks (which occurred quite a while ago) never went beyond a lunch to literally looking at the books. In the case of Entertainment Studios, this is a scenario where they’re reportedly looking at Landmark’s books. No word of talks yet

Should Allen acquire Landmark, it would add a keen distribution arm to his media empire which includes his theatrical feature division Entertainment Studios, Freestyle Releasing (which also does day and date releases), The Weather Channel (which he purchased at an estimated $300M back in March), as well as seven 24-hour HD television networks: JusticeCentral.TV, Pets.TV, Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, Cars.TV, ES.TV, and MyDestination.TV. Entertainment Studios is also the largest independent producer of first-run syndicated programming.

Landmark Theatres spans 53 venues and 255 screens, many locations of which are comprised of leases. Seven years ago when Wagner/Cuban companies put the chain up for sale they were seeking an estimated $200M.

When reached, Wagner/Cuban companies provided no comment.
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