Forecast Calls for Movies on The Weather Channel

NBC/Universal, as everyone knows, is not really the current model of how to run a broadcast enterprise. The Peackock has the worst ratings of the Big Four, has done away with scripted dramas in the coveted 10pm slot only to save money, and it turns out the company would have been better off with Leno at 11:30, anyway. Cable is a slightly different beast, where USA is at or near the top of the weekly leaders in ratings and sports some very profitable original series. Even hand-me-downs of NCIS on USA land in the top 25 cable shows every week. But when NBC bought The Weather Channel in 2008 for over $3 billion, that might have been a costly mistake. To make back some of that money, the channel cast off several long-serving on-air meteorologists, who were essentially replaced with NBC weathercasters. And now, to turn more viewers on to meteorology, you've already seen several times before. It won't be like HBO or Starz or anything, but you can catch films that have mother nature as a central figure beginning next Friday, October 30th, with The Perfect Storm. In addition to already announced films in the "Weather Channel Presents" series, like Misery and Deep Blue Sea, you can probably expect Twister, An Inconvenient Truth, and hopefully, the repugnant Avengers in which Sean Connery wants to alter the world's weather. Also: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in about six years. Of course, this move only works if you've never seen Deep Blue Sea on TNT in the past decade and you watch The weather Channel already. If you're not that interested - or if you get your weather from just about anywhere else - why on Earth would you blow a Friday night to watch a movie on cable...with weather forecasts planted in the lower right-hand corner of the screen?