When Weather Attacks

Once upon a time, if you were a cable or satellite subscriber, you could rely on staid, utilitarian information outlets such as The Weather Channel to give you the raw data you needed right at that moment. You know, information to help you answer basic questions like, Is it going to snow today? Or, what’s the relative humidity at the moment? (OK, OK, so I never actually needed to know that one.)

Those days are over.

For a while now, The Weather Channel has been trying to compete with other entertainment-oriented cable offerings. It already has a reality TV show (Storm Stories—featuring real people in real storms with real camcorders). But apparently that wasn’t enough. The Weather Channel has announced that, for the first time in its 27-year-year history, viewers will be able to watch movies as well.

First up? The Perfect Storm.

Now, I know that The Weather Channel broadcasting movies hardly qualifies as something to get bent out of shape about. No need for a boycott here.

But …

I think it’s yet another telling example of a clear trend when it comes to our media-drenched way of life: Information alone, as important as it may be, just isn’t enough anymore. If there’s not some entertainment in the mix to spice things up—you know, in case what’s happening with the barometric pressure in Minot, N.D., isn’t compelling enough—the assumption is that viewers will go elsewhere.

Even on The Weather Channel.