Weather, Weather Everywhere

Why wait for Fritz to say how it will be when you can get a local forecast every 10 minutes?

That’s the reasoning behind the Weather Channel--perhaps the ultimate example of a simple premise that can score in cable, and what many a niche network would like to grow up to be.

Launched in 1982, the channel premiered “much to the derision of the consumer press and the trade press,” says Chief Executive Michael J. Eckert. It promptly lost more than $10 million its first year.

Within four years, however, the network became profitable, and it now blankets nearly every cable system in America, available in more than 65 million homes.

The channel attributes that success to its focus on the consumer and the demand for a 24-hour weather service. Earlier this year, when cable operator Tele-Communications Inc. dropped the channel from 14 systems, viewer outcry prompted most to bring it back within a month.

But why a TV channel, when updates are readily available elsewhere, including radio?

Eckert cites a wide range of avid viewers, from travelers and gamblers (who need to know weather for sports events on which they might bet) to those who simply want to check the weather in a distant city where a loved one lives.

According to research, the channel’s average viewer watches 14 minutes at a time, 2.3 times daily, though there are weather enthusiasts (dubbed “trackers”) who view hours on end. The ratings record was set last year during Hurricane Fran, with more than 2 million homes registered in one 15-minute stretch.

Despite specials such as the upcoming “Enemy Wind,” about tornadoes, there are no plans to tamper with the formula of high-tech, up-to-the-minute weather updates. The service opened an 8,500-square-foot forecast center in Atlanta earlier this year, staffed by more than 80 meteorologists.

“We’ve stuck to our niche,” Eckert says. “What we’ve done is build a franchise that cable operators value.”