If you’ll excuse the pun, just as the weather heats up, so is the interest in weather news. So, it only stands to reason that those other than The Weather Channel are busting onto the scene. Among them, Fox Weather.
You read that right. Rupert Murdoch, patriarch of Fox News, is setting up a 24-hour weather channel later this year. Soon, The Weather Channel won’t be the only kid on the block.
How much of a threat does it pose? What are the reasons for Murdoch getting into the weather game? And what might it look like? Let’s examine.
Fox Weather: Why now?
It’s pretty simple. The Northwest heat, wildfires and tropical storms signify that weather (ie., climate change) will become THE story in the coming years. So it’s come to this. Murdoch sees an opportunity and is taking it.
With Trump no longer dominating the news, media conglomerates like Fox are looking for other ways to goose ratings. Viewership at the three big cable news outlets – CNN, Fox News and MSNBC – dropped 38% in 2021 from the year before. Meanwhile, The Weather Channel’s ratings bumped up 7%.
Weather becomes the new media rage. Because few of us believe it’s going to get better. If anything, it’s going to get worse. Even Murdoch sees a more emotionally intensive belief system arising from it all.
Is there room for another channel?
You bet. Even The Weather Channel knows this, creating a premium streaming service called Weather Channel Plus. Any brand worth its salt always looks for growing sectors. And media companies are no different. Fox Weather will become just the first interloper into the field in the coming years.
Just as Fox is adding Fox Weather, don’t be surprised if CNN and even the broadcast networks chime in soon.
What will Fox Weather look like?
Here we go. You can sense that Murdoch’s beast will dampen the increasing concern over climate change. Politicizing topics is what Murdoch does.
But I’m here to explain the sharpness of that approach. Murdoch always understands that to be chosen, you must present a truly different option than your competitors. You must be positioned against them. Otherwise, you just blend in. I’m convinced that if most mainstream media was conservative, Murdoch would take a liberal approach.
Let’s consider this from a different category. The only expanding sector in fast food right now is breakfast. That’s why you’ve seen such non-traditional players as Wendy’s and Taco Bell entering the fray. It’s the only place for growth.
Yet, so few of them are actually positioning themselves against the field. They blend in. So the newer choices become afterthoughts.
The weather landscape
I recommended the theme “when you’re tired of the usual” to a fast food chain, positioning itself as different in the breakfast day part. Fox Weather promises to be something like that. The Fox News first launched with the theme of “Fair & Balanced,” which hit on the belief that mainstream media was too liberal. (Fox News has since changed its theme.) It instantly tapped into a segment of the audience that felt it underserved.
Don’t be surprised if Fox Weather does something similar. Positioning will become everything in the coming years as more weather services pop up. No one understands that more than Rupert Murdoch.