Former “Good Morning America” weather man Sam Champion, who left ABC’s top-rated morning show for The Weather Channel — partly owned by NBC — says he was taken aback by speculation he could eventually replace Al Roker on NBC’s “Today” show.
“To be honest, it surprised me. I know you’re going to say it shouldn’ t have but it did,” he says about the “reading the tea leaves” buzz when he announced his jump to The Weather Channel last December.
“The Weather Channel is only a quarter-owned by Comcast,” he says, alluding to NBC’s corporate parent. “I wasn’t going to the ‘Today’ show, I never intended to go to the ‘Today’ show and I never negotiated with the ‘Today’ show … and starting March 17 it will be a non-issue.”
Champion is referring to Monday’s launch of “AMHQ with Sam Champion,” airing weekdays from 7 to 10 a.m. — right after Roker’s “Wake Up with Al” show.
Champion will be joined on the three-hour programming block — which will include sports, news and entertainment news — by Weather Channel vets Mike Bettes and Maria LaRosa (with Anaridis Rodriguez as newsreader and “experts” talking about entertainment).
“I didn’t have a career plan on breaking away from [ABC] or changing anything. I was very content on ‘GMA’ … with people I loved working with,” says Champion, 52. “But when the Weather Channel came to me and said, ‘We want to remake what morning TV is like on our channel — can you help us imagine what that would be like?’ that’s the reason I left.
“Given the chance to do this project, I looked at it really hard and thought, if I don’t do this I’m going to regret it,” he says. “It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come to a weather man — maybe an anchor, but not to someone in my end of the business.”
It’s not easy filling three hours of live TV, but Champion has a firm idea of how he wants “AMHQ ” to unfold (the show will air live throughout the entire country).
“I envision the first 15 minutes of each hour to cover weather stories from different regions of the country — for instance if there’s a snowstorm in Chicago, a rain event in the Northwest and an ice storm on the East Coast … we’ll break these down,” he says. “We can go live to [Weather Channel meteorologist] Jim Cantore with photos coming in — what’s on Twitter and Facebook — and do exactly the same thing on the next story.”
And what about news, sports and entertainment stories?
“Every story has weather information, and I’ll find a weather angle,” Champion says. “We’re going to fully prepare you for your day and we’re going to have a news conversation and what people are talking about regarding sports . . . and how weather plays into that … and did you hear about Lindsay Lohan’s show on OWN.
“We don’t want you to change channels, and I don’t want you to have to leave my show to find out about news elsewhere.”
And, Champion says, those huge billboards with his face plastered on them are misleading.
“This show is not about me,” he says. “It’s an ensemble show. One of the things I learned at ‘GMA’ is that the ‘family’ at the desk is what gives a show its energy, feeling and watchability . . . and people need to see that those relationships are not fake.”