After a nearly three-month blackout, the Weather Channel will be back on DirecTV 's program lineup as of Wednesday, after the companies reached a new programming agreement. Helping swing the deal was an unlikely player: Hilton Hotels .

DirecTV retreated from its demand for a significant cut to the fees it was paying the Weather Channel, instead agreeing to a slight increase, according to a person familiar with the deal. Mostly its change of heart was due to its interest in another business deal: becoming the "preferred" provider for Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., the hotel chain, according to another person familiar with the matter. Hilton wanted the Weather Channel on the TV service—conscious that travelers are particularly focused on weather information.

Hilton's majority owner is Blackstone Group LP, which is also one of the owners of Weather Channel's parent Weather Co.

People familiar with the matter said Blackstone had no influence on Hilton's push for the Weather Channel. Blackstone executives told their counterparts at Hilton several times not to let the dispute between DirecTV and the Weather Channel influence their decision on which TV service to select, one of the people said.

Nonetheless, DirecTV's decision to bring the Weather Channel back to its lineup gives a boost to Blackstone and its fellow owners, Bain Capital LLC and Comcast Corp. 's NBCUniversal, which paid about $3.5 billion to acquire the business in 2008. DirecTV wanted to cut the fee it paid to carry the Weather Channel, which would likely have prompted a string of other TV providers to ask for a similar reduction. DirecTV CEO Mike White said in a public letter to customers earlier this year that the Weather Channel was worth only "one quarter of the price" the channel wanted the satellite operator to pay.