Rupert Murdoch is launching Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming channel, as The Weather Channel is preparing its own streaming service

The New York Times

"Later this year, Rupert Murdoch is set to debut Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming channel that promises to do for seven-day forecasts what Fox has done for American politics, financial news and sports," reports The New York Times' Michael M. Grynbaum. "Not to be outdone, the Weather Channel — granddaddy of television meteorology — announced the creation of a new streaming service, Weather Channel Plus, that the company believes could reach 30 million subscribers by 2026." Grynbaum adds: "Inside Mr. Murdoch’s company, the view is that the sometimes-staid world of weather TV is ripe for disruption. Fox is hiring a throng of meteorologists and weather data analysts for the venture, which includes a flashy multimillion-dollar studio at its Midtown Manhattan headquarters. The service will cover major national weather events and integrate dozens of local forecasters from Fox’s regional affiliate stations." Fox Weather comes as Byron Allen's The Weather Channel has embraced more climate change coverage. But it's unclear if Fox Weather would take climate change seriously. Fox Weather, Grynbaum adds, will be overseen by Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, and Sharri Berg, a longtime Fox executive who helped launch Fox News at its inception in 1996. "Some of Fox News’s conservative commentators, including Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, have a track record of downplaying, if not denying, the threat of climate change," says Grynbaum. "The subject has even generated division within the Murdoch family: James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s younger son, rebuked his father last year after Murdoch-owned media outlets in Australia dismissed climate change as a culprit for deadly wildfires that ravaged the country." Meanwhile, Allen is unbothered by the new competition. “Business is a contact sport,” he said. “So they took a couple of our producers. That’s OK. What I’ve always found is that whenever we hire new people, we usually get better.”