• by Wayne Friedman , August 20, 2020

The Weather Group -- parent of the The Weather Channel TV network -- has hired former Charter Communications executive Fred Bucher as its senior vice president and chief marketing officer. 

In this new position, Bucher will head up all marketing efforts and research at the network as well as Local Now, the Weather Channel’s free streaming service.

Previously, Bucher was been senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Spectrum Reach, the advertising sales division of Charter Communications. Before that he was senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Time Warner Cable Media and vice president of marketing solutions at ESPN.

Amidst the recent changes in consumer behavior, Tom O’Brien, President of Weather Group, stated it is increasingly important for the network to continue to come up with innovative "storytelling” through “technical capabilities that we’ve been advancing for years.”

Among all cable TV networks, The Weather Channel average a Nielsen-measured 163,000 viewers in prime time in the second quarter of 2020 -- placing it 58th among all cable TV channels -- and it earned 130,000 viewers in total day viewing (54th place).

For the most recent 12-month period --August 2019 to August 2020 -- the network pulled $139.8 million in national TV advertising, according to iSpot.tv.