Weather Channel Gets New Deal With Dish

The Weather Channel, which has been involved in some bruising carriage negotiations in the past year, has signed a new carriage agreement with Dish Network, a notoriously difficult negotiator.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Dish customers will have access to the Weather Channel and its interactive app on Dish’s Hopper whole-home DVR.

The deal also includes over-the-top streaming rights for live and video-on-demand content. The Weather Channel will be launched by Dish’s Sling TV by July. Pricing and packaging information will be announced closer to launch, the companies said.

“Dish and The Weather Channel have been partners for two decades and we are pleased to continue and expand that relationship to Sling TV,” Warren Schlichting, Dish senior VP of programming, said in a statement.

“We are happy to extend our long relationship with Dish, and look forward to continuing to innovate together to provide the best possible service to their subscribers," said David Kenny, chairman and CEO of The Weather Company.

Verizon’s FiOS dropped The Weather Channel in March. And Weather Channel was off DirecTV from January through April. The satellite broadcaster agreed to pay the programmer a small increase in its subscriber fee, but Weather Channel agreed to slash the amount of reality programming it aired.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.