Media mogul and billionaire Byron Allen, the owner of theGrio’s parent company Entertainment Studios, is expanding his empire once more.
Allen’s Allen Media Group announced on Wednesday the launch of The Weather Channel’s new subscription streaming service: The Weather Channel Plus. The subscription service will run at $4.99 per month with more than 50 news and entertainment streaming channels offered.
The Weather Channel Plus is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Thirty million subscribers are projected in the first five years of this initiative.
“The Weather Channel has been voted the most-trusted news brand in America for eleven consecutive years, and the fifth most-trusted brand in America overall, which makes it the perfect brand for a direct-to-consumer streaming platform,” said Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group, in a statement.
“We’ve aggregated some of the best news and entertainment content while keeping it affordable and accessible at the same time. We are highly confident that consumers will enjoy The Weather Channel Plus streaming service for decades to come.”
Entertainment Studios purchased The Weather Channel in 2018, making Allen the first African American to own a major cable outlet. His investment was one he hoped would encourage the Black community to start having more conversations about the impact of climate change.
“As an African American man hopefully I’m bringing more attention to climate and environment,” Allen told theGrio’s Natasha S. Alford, Vice President of Digital Content and Senior Correspondent for theGrio, in 2019.
Allen made similar comments earlier this year at the virtual TCA session about the existential threat of global warming not being taken seriously enough.
“The Weather Channel had a way of making sure that they didn’t offend folks, and they would never talk about climate change and global warming, because there were some people who said it wasn’t happening, and some people said it was happening,” Allen said. “I’m going to go with the scientists, because people don’t truly understand that climate change and global warming is the greatest threat to human beings on planet Earth. We have to inform folks so we can help save their lives. I mean, it actually means you’re going to die.”
The businessman also stressed at the time the need for people to connect the dots around the various natural disasters taking place in the world.
“We had record-breaking hurricanes, over 27 of them, which is more than we’ve had in 150 years,” Allen said.
“People don’t understand that can create fires, as you saw on the West Coast. And it also can create weather events that will create weather refugees. And as you have people who can’t inhabit one space, try and cross borders, you will start to witness genocide, you’re going to see food shortage, you will see species and animals leave their natural habitat and get closer to the human food chain.”
“And that will create epidemics and pandemics like we’re seeing now,” he continued. “It’s a real problem, and we as a planet have to come together and address it, because it is a real threat.”
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