When Ted Turner expanded his audience for Atlanta-based SuperStation WTCG from local to national via satellite in 1976, metro Atlanta became the birthplace of the nation’s first basic cable television network. Although it continued to operate on Channel 17 in Atlanta, WTCB became WTBS, and the beginning of the Turner Broadcasting System.
That was followed by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, CBN, with an Atlanta connection via its local station here. Then in 1980, Turner Broadcasting’s Cable News Network, CNN, began 24-hour news coverage, showcasing its Atlanta bureau, and thus the start of specialized cable television networks.
On May 2, 1982, The Weather Channel signed on nationally from a Mt. Wilkinson Parkway office park near Cumberland Mall in Cobb County. Last weekend, many of the original Weather Channel pioneers commemorated their anniversary with a 30-year reunion celebration at the Mansour Center in Marietta.
All the way from San Diego’s KUSI-TV, Weather Channel visionary, founder, and former Good Morning America weather anchor, John Coleman shared stories with the group.
He described how then GMA anchor David Hartman was indirectly responsible for The Weather Channel.
Coleman was frustrated that his weather reports were the “time accordion” when other GMA segments ran long and he decided that something innovative was needed. He broke out some Sharpies and created the first Weather Channel brochures that he took to the 1977 National Cable Television Convention in Las Vegas.
By the fall of 1981, the skeletal staff of what would become The Weather Channel was being assembled, and by March 1, 1982, 80 people began training for what would be the first broadcast of its kind.
I remember the early days of The Weather Channel from a unique perspective as I was one of the original 30 on-camera meteorologists signed up to sign on the nation’s first and only cable network devoted to delivering live, unscripted around-the clock-weather reports seven days a week.
We came from different backgrounds and experience, from John Hope, Senior Hurricane Specialist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, to relatively recent college graduates, some mentored by Joe D’Aleo, a meteorology professor at Lyndon State College in Vermont. We also came from Penn State, AccuWeather, Weather Services Corporation, PBS and local television stations from Wichita to Providence, Baltimore and Atlanta, among many others.
We used what was then cutting edge technology and computer graphics such as the Quantel Paintbox. We brought together for the first time, national radar, which was a composite of radar sites located across the country, and became the first national clearinghouse of local weather reports, watches and warnings.
Thirty years later a handful of us remain in Georgia, but most are scattered all over the country again. Some are gone forever. The Weather Channel’s reach extends across the nation, but it remains headquartered here in the suburbs -- almost iconic with the unique broadcasting niche it fills. That’s something to celebrate.
Vicki Griffin has lived in Roswell for 22 years. Reach her at vlg1230@hotmail.com.
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