EXCLUSIVE: Allen Media Group is shuttering The Weather Channel en Español at year end, the latest hit in a round of belt-tightening.
“As part of Allen Media Group’s extensive cost-cutting measures, The Weather Channel en Español will cease operations on December 31, 2024,” AMG said in a statement to Deadline on Monday.
The move is the latest in a string of measures to cut costs. Earlier this month, the company owned by Byron Allen said Pattrn, a climate-themed FAST channel owned by AMG, will stop programming next month, returning to its social media roots and keeping a weekend TV presence on The Weather Channel.
In October, AMG had a round of layoffs with the exits of key members of its weather, news and sports teams, impacting The Weather Channel, its AVOD service HBCU Go as well as its Entertainment Studios and ad sales divisions.
The company earlier announced layoffs last spring with 2024 a year of dramatic layoffs at media companies of all sizes in large part due to declining viewership of linear television, where AMG is heavily invested.
It said then it was “making strategic changes to better position the company for growth that will result in expense and workforce reductions across all divisions of the company. Allen Media Group’s brands continue to perform well and in many areas our revenue growth has greatly outpaced the market. We are aligning these changes to drive future business opportunities and support our growth strategies in our rapidly evolving industry.”
Privately operated AMG owns 36 ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox network affiliate broadcast television stations in 21 U.S. markets; digital network TheGrio; and a motion picture division that includes a distribution arm.
According to the website of AMG’s Weather Group, The Weather Channel en Español network was the first 24/7 Spanish-language free-streaming weather news network in the U.S., providing weather coverage and news across the U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America.
