Does The Weather Channel benefit from blizzards?
Does The Weather Channel benefit from blizzards?
Most of us panic or try to remember how much canned food we have when we hear words like these: “We’re going to have basically two storms coming together, merging into one much larger storm.”
That’s meteorologist Stephen Strum, with Frontier Weather. But the bad storm is good for some businesses, says Evan Gold with Planalytics, which studies the economic impact of weather.
“This is great news for The Weather Channel,” he says. Gold describes The Weather Channel as reality TV, and big storms like these are the products it sells. This year the channel is even branding blizzards.
“The Weather Channel has started to name the storms.” Gold says.
Meet Nemo, that’s what The Weather Channel is calling this one. Gold says the bigger the storm, the bigger the audience and the ad revenue.
“They are definitely about trying to help people understand and manage the impact of weather, but they are a media company first — they are in business to make money,” he says.
The Weather Channel didn’t respond to requests for comment, but during Hurricane Sandy, it got more primetime viewers than any cable news show.
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