Last week saw media group Entertainment Studios/Allen Media buy Weather Group, owners of The Weather Channel for a reported $300 million (€241.9m). The Weather Channel launched in the US in May 1982.

Part of the overall plan, according to Entertainment Studios founder Byron Allen, is to expand the footprint of The Weather Channel globally.

“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 Byron Allen, in a statement which covered the key purchase information.

“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.”

A subsequent interview saw him confirm his wish to see The Weather Channel globally on every device.

Entertainment Studios and Allen Media have interests in a number of TV channels and OTT services, including: Pets TV, Recipe TV, Comedy TV, Cars TV, ES TV, MyDestination TV and JusticeCentral TV.

Weather.com, which already offers location-specific weather forecasts internationally – and confusingly is branded The Weather Channel – is not part of the purchase.

Atlanta-based The Weather Channel was launched internationally on SES Astra in 1996 and occupying an expensive analogue transponder which reached the whole of Europe. It closed a few years later.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

Categories: Blogs, Content, Inside Satellite