Paul Douglas let go as WCCO trims staff

Popular meteorologist Paul Douglas is no longer with WCCO as its parent network CBS is downsizing at stations nationwide, according to Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins. Early this week, WCCO weekend anchor John Reger was let go along with “a handful of other staff members,” according to a report by WCCO’s Jason DeRusha on Wednesday. Collins puts the number at eight, and says station management said buyouts will be offered to a few staffers.

The same wave of cost-cutting that’s hit the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune is now hitting TV, DeRusha said. CBS has called for the elimination of around 100 local TV jobs nationwide, while NBC is in the midst of cutting 700 positions and ABC is nixing 30, he added.

Douglas’ bio on WCCO’s website already reads, “Page not found,” but a conversation with Don Shelby on his quarter-century career is still available.

Don’t fret about where Douglas’s next paycheck will come from, though. He’s rich. In 1997 he sold an early entrepreneurial venture called EarthWatch (a 3-D weather graphics modeling tool that had been used to produce the special effects in Twister and Jurassic Park) for $3 million, and last year he and a partner realized somewhere north of $22 million when they sold Digital Cyclone, a service that sends customized weather forecasts to cellphones and other personal electronic devices.

Related: Douglas’ farewell email to colleagues