I'm sure The Weather Channel would love to have only freelance OCMs. Bizarre, non-guaranteed schedules, much lower salaries... and more money saved from payroll goes into non-weather longform programming.
Just how low is TWC going to sink? Taking away talented, liked, experienced OCMs is literally taking away the face of the channel. I tell you... the day will come when TWC turns into longform only, maybe still with the LDL and an occasional local forecast segment, but that's it.