AccuWeather, Inc. - 1980s Enhancements

1980s Enhancements

AccuWeather developed the weather page for the national daily USA Today, launched by Gannett Co. in 1982. In 1986, AccuWeather began producing weather maps for the Associated Press. Business blossomed in the early 1980s. According to Forbes, revenues were about $2 million in 1983, when AccuWeather had 500 clients.

The company's AccuData real-time weather database was introduced in 1984. It originally incorporated 12,000 different weather products; this number would nearly triple over the next several years. Subscribers included home, business, and educational users. In pre-Internet days, users could access AccuWeather's database via modems and the Accu-Weather Forecaster program. The software displayed the raw data with a number of graphics. Users were charged sign-up and connection fees.

AccuWeather streamlined its data delivery for various media. It introduced broadcast-ready color graphics for television in 1983 (it began supplying weather graphics computers systems to TV stations three years later). It also began transmitting weather data directly to newspapers' typesetting systems.

The company expanded into the aviation and education markets in the mid-1980s. AccuWeather's main challenge over the next 20 years would be to successfully meet the demands of new broadcast technologies. One of these, cable television, provided a platform for the emergence of a powerful new rival, The Weather Channel.

At the end of the 1980s, AccuWeather had about 2,000 clients. It limited its franchise to one television and one radio station per market. It was also supplying Reuters Ltd., the U.K. based wire service, as well as scores of private businesses and government agencies. AccuWeather acquired Oklahoma City's WeatherScan International Corporation in 1989.