Roger Yu

USA TODAY

Around 20 million customers affected

Companies continue to negotiate

DirecTV touts its own weather channel%2C but The Weather Channel calls it %22a cheap startup%22

DirecTV dropped The Weather Channel from its lineup Tuesday after the two sides failed to agree on a new contract, the latest in a series of battles between TV distributors and content owners about programming costs.

About 20 million DirecTV customers - or 18% of The Weather Channel's total viewership - were affected, as the companies blamed each other for the impasse but continue to negotiate.

Pay-TV service providers, including cable and satellite companies, pay cable networks affiliate fees to include their channels, and the fees are dictated by contracts that run for several years. With programming costs rising, cable networks have pressed pay-TV companies for fee increases, with mixed results.

The Weather Channel, which is owned by the Weather Company, receives about 13 cents per subscriber per month, below the median among the fees collected by cable networks, according to research firm SNL Kagan. ESPN, the Disney-owned sports channel with live sports events that garner high ratings, is the clear leader in carriage fees, generating about $5.50 per subscriber.

In the run-up to the expiration of its contract with DirecTV Monday, the Weather Company — owned by NBC Universal and private-equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital — sought to portray its weather coverage as playing a critical public safety role as it demanded an increase in fees. The Weather Channel is available in "over 100 million homes," according to spokeswoman Shirley Powell.

"I am shocked they have put corporate profits ahead of keeping a trusted channel," said David Kenny, CEO of The Weather Company, adding that DirecTV is compromising "safety" in its decision to drop the channel. "We are not looking for a large fee increase. I am hopeful DirecTV will come to their senses soon."

DirecTV urged customers to turn to its own weather channel, WeatherNation, which it launched in response to a brief dispute over fees with The Weather Channel in 2010. The satellite TV firm touted WeatherNation as a source of "around-the-clock, 100 percent" weather news and information, a not-so-subtle poke at The Weather Channel's controversial decision several years ago to produce and air non-weather programs, including movies and reality shows.

"Consumers understand there are now a variety of other ways to get weather coverage, free of reality show clutter," DirecTV said in a statement. "We are in the process of discussing an agreement to return the network to our lineup."

The Weather Channel called WeatherNation "a cheap start-up that does weather forecasting on a three-hour taped loop, has no field coverage, no weather experts."

Competition for weather broadcasting will get another entrant this year. AccuWeather, which provides weather forecasting data to media companies, said Tuesday it will launch its own channel in the third quarter of 2014.

The planned debut of the AccuWeather Channel had been under wraps, but the State College, Pa.-based company said it decided to accelerate the announcement in light of the DirecTV-Weather Channel dispute.