Weather Channel Lays Off 7% Of Workforce In Restructuring

By Alex Weprin 

The Weather Channel laid off dozens of employees today as part of a mass restructuring of the company. TVNewser hears that as many as 75-80 people were affected by the changes, with Weather’s Atlanta headquarters hit hardest.

In a statement, a spokesperson for The Weather Channel confirmed that it was eliminating positions across the company, and that approximately 7% of the workforce would be affected.

“In late September we began an effort to reorganize of our company into business units based around our customers and the products and services we create and deliver to them,” the statement says. “This effort was recently concluded and has resulted in the elimination of positions in several divisions of the company. With these organizational changes and our new structure, we are better positioned for future growth. Employees who are directly affected by this position elimination or reorganization are being informed and we are working closely with them through this period of transition.”

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Weather last laid off employees in November, 2008, not long after NBCUniversal acquired a controlling stake in the company alongside private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. In the past few weeks a number of on-air meteorologists announced that they were leaving the company, including 14-year employee Adam Berg and 27-year employee Jeff Morrow. It isn’t clear if their departures are related to the wave of layoffs that hit the channel today.

We will update the story with any new information, as we get it.

2012 also marks Weather’s 30th anniversary on TV, as we noted earlier this year.

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