apropos of nothing

NBC to Buy the Weather Channel; Ben Silverman to Control Weather

Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: WireImage, Getty Images


From: ben.silverman@nbc.com

Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 11:26 AM

To: all@theweatherchannel.com

Subject: Greetings from your new boss

Hey dudes,

What’s poppin’? B.S. here. You guys have a good Fourth? Mine wasn’t bad (if anyone knows how to get tiger fur out of a hot-tub filter, shoot me an email). Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve probably heard, NBC has just agreed to buy the Weather Channel for the not-insignificant price of $3.5 billion, which means I’m your new boss. Actually, no one has yet made this clear to me, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it means. As such, I have a few mandatory suggestions.

• What’s up with the smooth jazz? From now on, for all local five-day forecasts, I insist on one of the following, regardless of temperature or conditions: “Rock You Like a Hurricane” or “Hot Hot Hot.”

• Speaking of hurricanes — do they ever happen in May? Do you think you guys could keep an eye out for a really big, destructive, evacuation-causing one the same week as 2009’s American Idol finale? Thanks.

• Okay, enough about hurricanes. We need to start thinking about Hurricane 2.0; what will be the next deadly tropical storm to capture peoples’ imaginations before it destroys their homes? Typhoons? Monsoons? Waterspouts? Are there any cool ones from other countries we can import?

• Back to hurricanes for a second — I just thought of a really great name for the next big horrible one. How about Hurricane ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson?

That should cover it for now. I look forward to working with all of you.

Smoke on the water,

Ben Silverman
Chairman
NBC Entertainment

NBC Agrees to Buy Weather Channel [NYT]

NBC to Buy the Weather Channel; Ben Silverman to Control Weather