The Return to Focus: Publishers Wake Up to the Limitations of Growing Too Much Too Soon

In mid-September, The Weather Channel announced a pivot that, on paper, might sound a bit strange: It was going to focus on the weather.

The channel, home to five-day forecasts and obsessive storm and blizzard coverage, had until last month adopted a decidedly more populist approach to programming. “American Super/Natural,” which debuted in 2013, chronicles weather-related myths and mysteries. In “Fat Guys in the Woods,” a survival expert teaches Average Joes how to survive in the wild. “Prospectors” follows a group of miners as they search for rare gems. By the middle of 2015, 47 percent of Weather Channel’s programming was dedicated to this kind of original programming, with the remaining 53 percent controlled by its live weather information.