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CABLE'S STORM KING REINVENTS ITSELFTHE WEATHER CHANNEL IS the trailblazer in offering 24-hour coverage of every hurricane and tornado on earth and after 15 years, still has no major rivals on cable. Not so with the Web. Here, the Atlanta-based forecaster faces more than 2,000 competitors--some of which have outmatched the Weather Channel's daily offerings. Recently, The Weather Channel began to fight back by launching a revamp of its Web site (weather.com). The new site stresses ''breaking weather'' coverage and graphics, primarily aimed at besting its major rival CNN (cnn.com). Still, during Hurricane Danny, CNN scooped TWC with photos of wreckage and reports. And despite The Weather Channel's upgrade, CNN's site still has a leg up: downloadable video clips that capture a storm in progress. TWC promises to offer a similar feature by October. Todd Walrath, TWC's director of product development says: ''We have a bond with the weather consumer, and the Web helps us reinforce that bond.'' To alert the consumer about the improved site, TWC is paying its on-air talent some old-fashioned ''incentives'' to promote weather.com in between forecasts.
By Brad Wolverton
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Updated July 31, 1997 by bwwebmaster
Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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