By Brian Stelter, CNN

The ongoing blackout of the Weather Channel in DirecTV homes - affecting fully a sixth of all American households - exposes a challenge for television channels that carry weather, news and other types of information that are increasingly accessible on the Internet.

The channels have to ensure that they're providing something the Internet can't - and that may be getting harder and harder to do.

"News, weather and financial information are so widely available online, it's very cannibalistic to these genres," said Derek Baine, a senior analyst for SNL Kagan.

The television blackout, after all, doesn't extend to what is arguably the Weather Channel's most important asset, Weather.com. DirecTV customers still have access to the Web site, "which may be cannibalizing the core channel anyways," Baine said.

Read more of Brian's article here.

By Brian Stelter, CNN

DirecTV (DTV, Fortune 500), the biggest satellite television distributor in the United States, appears to have replaced the Weather Channel with WeatherNation, a 24-hour channel that DirecTV has been promoting as an alternative.

"This is unprecedented for the Weather Channel," said David Kenny, CEO of the Weather Channel's parent company. "In our 32 years, we have never had a significant disruption due to a failure to reach a carriage agreement."

Usually when cable channels and distributors go to war over money, the two sides warn customers that a blackout will be inconvenient. This time, the Weather Channel is saying it'll be downright dangerous.

Read more of Brian's article here.