Doug Weathers

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William Douglas Weathers (born September 22, 1931) is a television journalist in Savannah, Georgia and the former WTOC-TV anchorman and News Director. His last broadcast as anchorman was on May 23, 2001.

Doug Weathers was born in Marianna, Florida. He began working as a teenager at his hometown movie theater. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War. After that conflict he re-enlisted and was ordered to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah in 1954. He began working for WTOC-TV that same year while still serving in the Army. Weathers started at the bottom in the news department as a film editor. He worked his way up to running the projector, operating the studio cameras and helping with the production of the news broadcast. His hard work paid off and in less than a decade, in 1962, he landed the top position of news director and anchorman.

He left WTOC-TV to join rival WJCL-TV as anchorman in 1973. It was a bid by the city's 3rd rated station to improve their ratings. It worked. Viewers switched to WJCL because Weathers was by this time a household name in Savannah. But WTOC had deeper pockets. They managed to lure him back as head of the news and public affairs departments in 1979. He stayed until his retirement in 2001.

Weathers style changed little over the years. He never abandoned his down-home approach to the news. He would often feature "hokey" stories about farmers and their giant vegetables or anglers with really big fish. It was part of his appeal and a source of bewilderment to his competition. A long line of news directors, anchormen and television news consultants at other Savannah stations tried for years to knock Weathers from his perch as #1 in the market without success. His popularity never flagged and WTOC's newscasts remained firmly atop the local ratings.