History of The Weather Channel Network, and the "Forecast Earth"/environmental unit (however, certain portions of the "Forecast Earth" unit remain with TWC). The layoffs took effect on November 30 (The Weather Channel later stated it would air other environmental programs). With the shutdown of NBC Weather Plus that month as a result of NBC Universal's partial acquisition of The Weather Channel, certain meteorologists from the digital broadcast network were eventually integrated into TWC's on-camera weather staff; forecasting, radar and graphics systems used by other NBC Universal television news properties (including NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC) replaced the Weather Plus-branded banner graphics to fit The Weather
History of The Weather Channel order to build 1,000 units for a new STAR model known as the Weather Star Jr, a budget model developed by Wegener Communications, which builds equipment for cable headends. 1995 brought a variety of changes to TWC, setting the stage for more changes that occurred the following year. Minor graphical tweaks were made, while local forecast segments began incorporating Short Term Forecasts issued by local National Weather Service offices as the "Local Update" (which in turn destabilized flavor lineups and caused the discontinuation of narration). The 30-Day Outlook was discontinued by the National Weather Service (which required TWC to discontinue