Fox Wants to Profit From Your Rainy Day

Its new weather streaming service is betting on digital sizzle and customized forecasts

- Gerry Smith

Amid all the droughts, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes that have battered America this year, Rupert Murdoch sees an opportunity to make it rain. On Oct. 25 his media empire introduced Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming service to take on meteorological incumbents such as the Weather Channel and capitalize on the increasingly frightening state of Earth’s daily forecasts.

As weather events grow more intense, Fox Corp. executives are betting that consumers are hungry for more than just an iPhone app that tells them the temperature and whether to carry an umbrella. “We’re looking to make weather more than just this utility,” says Sharri Berg, president of Fox Weather.

The service’s studio on the 12th floor of Fox’s Manhattan headquarters boasts a battery of meteorological innovations, including something called the “The Sky Dome,” a tricked-out studio ceiling outfitted with LED lights, which change color in concert with the time of day and the ever-shifting whims of the weather gods. When the forecasts get severe, the whole thing glows red. “It’s pretty dramatic,” Berg says.