After watching competitors steal its thunder when it comes to weather coverage, The Weather Channel is seeking to take it back.
The cable network is trying to draw an audience in primetime, one of its lowest-rated time periods, with a slate of original shows.
It is also banking on star power — in the form of widely recognized weatherman Al Roker — to boost ratings in the morning.
The moves come less than a year after Landmark Communications sold the channel to NBC Universal and private-equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital for a reported $3.5 billion.
For years, The Weather Channel has talked about little else other than the weather.
Although it dabbled in original shows, it never built a schedule around them.
Along the way, it ceded popular programming formulas that would have been a natural fit, such as “Deadliest Catch” and other man-against-the-elements shows, to cable networks like Discovery.
While The Weather Channel has amassed a huge audience on the Internet, drawing more than 40 million unique users a month, and on cell phones, its TV ratings are under pressure.
This year, the network has been averaging about 330,000 viewers between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., down from more than 460,000 just five years ago, Nielsen figures show.
Part of it is because more viewers are turning to the Web, including the channel’s own weather.com site, to get up-to-the-minute forecasts.
There’s also plenty of competition from other cable channels and local TV stations.
Geoffrey Darby, executive vice president of programming, said he believes the declines have bottomed out and that the network is pursuing the right strategy.
“We used to be a monopoly on cable but now we have a lot of competition,” he said. “It has forced us to wake up and smell the coffee and take back what is ours.”
The Weather Channel is starting with Sunday nights, when it has scheduled a three-hour block of shows, including “Storm Stories,” its most highly rated series. New additions such as “Weatherproof,” “Cantore Stories,” and “Hurricane Force” also pit Mother Nature against an interesting cast of characters.
There are early signs of success. The ratings for its weekend primetime block, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., are up more than 30 percent compared with a year ago.