Ooooohhh… this is rich. From the Washington Post:
NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week,” as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are among the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.
….
The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC’s “Green Week,” during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.
Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.
Two things.
- This brings to serious question just how committed NBC/Universal is to this ‘green’ nonsense. In simple terms, they were riding trhe green wave. Apparently, I’m not the only one who saw this as a wave of brown.
- Clearly, ‘green is a luxury, and when survival is in the balance, green goes out the window, as we’ve been saying for years.
I suppose and expect that saner heads at NBC, what few there are left, have been looking for a way to drop this nonsense for years, now, because in reality it wasn’t all that popular a notion, no matter how they pushed it at us. I expect financial reality was the wedge that brought it to it’s end at TWC.
Tags: cnn anchor, committed nbc, environmental program, financial reality, global climate change, natalie allen, weather channel
