The Weather Cast was a television channel seen exclusively on

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

. The channel was devoted solely to

weather forecasts Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

from across the United States, and was a direct competitor to

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel ...

(owned by

NBC Universal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and headquartered at 30 ...

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

, and

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman ...

). The service was owned by

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

-based WeatherNation The channel was operated for only four days.

Background

The channel launched on Dish Network channel 213 on May 20, 2010. The next day, on May 21, 2010, Dish Network announced that it would be eliminating The Weather Channel from its lineups in favor of The Weather Cast, citing rights fees (The Weather Channel requested a rate increase from 11 cents per subscriber to 12 cents, a nine percent increase, totalling $140,000 per month for all Dish subscribers) and The Weather Channel's decision to move toward movies and other entertainment programming. Dish Network and The Weather Channel reached an agreement to continue carriage of The Weather Channel on May 24, 2010,DISH Network and The Weather Channel Reach Agreement
The Weather Channel press release May 24, 2010 even though Dish's concerns about programming remained only partially addressed (the Friday-night movie that was particularly unpopular with viewers was removed, but instead replaced with more entertainment programming). This agreement led to the discontinuation of The Weather Cast, making it one of the shortest-lived television channels in history. The agreement also led to The Weather Channel to produce a local

Weatherscan Weatherscan (previously Weatherscan Local from 1999 to 2003) was an American digital cable and satellite television, satellite television network that offered uninterrupted local weather information. A spinoff of The Weather Channel (TWC), the a ...

-style weather information channel for Dish Network, as this advisory indicated on The Weather Cast's channel after its demise: At 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time, the screen was replaced with a message saying this: As of June 1, 2010, DISH Network channel 213 was off the air, with no indication when or if the locally based TWC channel would launch. 213 would later be replaced by WEATI (The Weather Channel's interactive program). On March 30, 2011, WeatherNation announced that they will be relaunching their national weather

TV network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or, in the United ...

, now as WeatherNation TV.

References

External links

WeatherNation TV
regarding the channel's launch
WeatherNation TV live on Ustream
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weather Cast Defunct television networks in the United States Weather television networks Television channels and stations established in 2010 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2010 Dish Network