Paul Douglas Loses Job in Cost-cutting Move by CBS/WCCO

If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes, and it'll change. That's a well-known saying here in Minnesota where a temperature shift of thirty degrees or more in a matter of hours is not unheard of.

Our weather is volatile and can be dangerous at times. We Minnesotans have come to value the people who forecast the weather and make sure we stay a step ahead of the storm...be it flooding rains, a tornado, or a blinding blizzard.

That's why WCCO television station's abrupt dismissal on Friday of respected weatherman Paul Douglas, came as such a shock to loyal Channel 4 watchers.

Paul Douglas is an upper Midwest television icon having seen area residents through such notable weather events as the Halloween blizzard of 1991, the devastating St. Peter tornado of 1998, and the record flooding of southeastern Minnesota in 2007.
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Douglas began his career at KARE 11 in 1983, and soon became the "go-to" guy for weather information in the Twin Cities metro area and beyond.

He took a job in Chicago in 1994, but in 1997 returned to Minnesota to work at WCCO.

In addition to his on-air job at WCCO, he co-founded a wireless weather-information provider, Digital Cyclone, which was sold to Garmin, Ltd., an international communications-devices corporation, in 2007 for a reported sum of $45 million.

As stated on wikipedia.org, Douglas "founded EarthWatch Communications in 1990, which created weather visualizations for the films Jurassic Park and Twister."

Douglas is also currently a contributor to the weather column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper.

His firing was the result of a money-saving move by CBS/WCCO in "response to dwindling ad revenue and TV viewership", according to Neal Justin in his April 6th article on the Star Tribune website (www.star tribune.com). WCCO also cut other staff and one of its weekend anchors.

Douglas stated that the station did not try to renegotiate a lower contract with him. He regrets that he "did not get to say good-bye" to his viewers on the air.

I had the opportunity to meet Paul Douglas almost two decades ago when I happened upon his book signing event at a mall in Burnsville, Minnesota, while Christmas shopping.

Excited to have the opportunity to see Paul Douglas and buy his weather book for my young son, a weather enthusiast, we immediately got in line. We found Mr. Douglas to be as congenial and personable in the flesh as he is on television. He took a few moments to encourage my son to learn about the weather and told us about an area college which he felt had a good meteorology program.

Good luck, Paul! We know you'll be okay, but we'll sure miss you.

SOURCES: www.startribune.com
www.wikipedia.org