Media

DirecTV drops Weather Channel over 1 cent

DirecTV dropped the Weather Channel because the cable network refused to accept a 75 percent rate cut, according to Dave Kenny, CEO of Weather Company, the media company’s parent.

The pay-TV provider, which was paying the Weather Channel a monthly carriage fee of 13 cents per subscriber, told Kenny it needed to slash that fee because it was paying local broadcast stations big re-trans dollars and needed to save money.

Weather Channel was asking for a penny increase in its monthly carriage fee, to 14 cents per subscriber.

When the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement, Weather Channel was dropped from DirecTV’s 20 million subscribers — including more than 500,000 in the New York metro area — Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.

Weather Channel, owned by NBCUniversal and two private-equity firms, lacks the leverage to pressure carriers because it is basically a stand-alone enterprise.

It can’t negotiate as part of NBCU because of the government’s consent decree that allowed Comcast to acquire NBCU.

It had total 2013 revenue of $358.8 million.

DirecTV replaced the channel with WeatherNation, a channel first broadcast in 2010 when Dish Network was in a carriage dispute with the Weather Channel.

DirecTV also noted that many people get their weather info from mobile devices, not from TV.

With the shift toward mobile, Weather Channel’s traditional mandate on the tube is becoming less in demand. At the same time, the channel has broadened its focus to include more reality shows, which may broaden its audience but also makes it less of a weather-news channel.

Kenny is expecting the blackout to continue, but added that viewers “will switch to other providers, and that’s what’s happening now.”

“We can’t get into specifics, but certainly [the Weather Channel’s owners] should understand that when any commodity becomes ubiquitous, the price decreases,” said a DirecTV spokesman.