Even earlier start for weatherman Roker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, July 18, 2009
When NBC Universal purchased the Atlanta-based Weather Channel last year, peppy “Today Show” meteorologist Al Roker quickly figured this could be a great marriage for him, too.
He approached Weather Channel executives this year and suggested a show before his daily 7 to 10 a.m. stint on “The Today Show.” Called “Wake Up With Al,” the 6 a.m. show starts Monday and will be co-anchored by Roker and Weather Channel anchor Stephanie Abrams.
‘This just seemed like the perfect fit,’ Al Roker says about adding ‘Wake Up With Al’ to his daily schedule.
"Wake Up With Al"
6 a.m. Mondays-Fridays on the Weather Channel.
RECENT HEADLINES
“If you have Bob Costas, why not use him for the Olympics?” Roker said in a phone interview Wednesday. “This seemed like a perfect fit. I just wanted to make sure there was a way to do it without killing myself.”
Roker said he’s already up at 3 a.m. each day: “I just have to put my pants on a little earlier.”
NBC built a separate studio at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City with a 103-inch high-definition interactive touch screen. (“Whiz bang technology!” he said.) Abrams will work out of Atlanta headquarters.
“He’s personable. He’s likable. He’s humorous. It’s a pretty safe venture for the Weather Channel,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, an independent media services company.
Geoffrey Darby, executive vice president of programming for the Weather Channel, agreed that the move is a no-brainer. “Mornings are the Weather Channel’s prime time,” he said.
The Weather Channel’s ratings are typically highest on weekends. During the week of July 6, for example, the top-rated program was “Weekend View” on Saturday morning with 462,000 viewers.
“First Outlook,” the current weekday 6 a.m. show, drew 185,000 to 228,000 viewers last week. (By comparison, repeats of “Married … With Children” on TBS brought in between 500,000 and 700,000 viewers that hour.)
“Wake Up With Al” will, of course, focus on the weather. But the network is also going to use other NBC news operations, with headline summaries from MSNBC and CNBC anchors.
Darby said the network did focus groups and found people typically flip around at 6 a.m., catching some weather on the Weather Channel, then go to another network for news. He hopes by providing a bit of non-weather news on “Wake Up With Al,” viewers might stick around a bit longer.
Logistically, Roker said it will take him only five minutes to walk from his Weather Channel studio to “Today.”
