The phone company gives its WeatherLine the boot.

Verizon and other phone companies are finding it increasingly profitable to get out of the information business, and the days of calling numbers for the current time of day or hiring someone to deliver local weather, sports scores or lotto numbers are increasingly behind us.

For decades local phone companies have run recorded announcement services, first as a free public service and then as a profit center.  The venerable “Time of Day” service, which in some areas was broadened to include the current temperature and an abbreviated weather forecast, was initially envisioned as a labor saver.  That’s because your grandparents used to call and bug the operator for the current time to synchronize their clocks, which tied up switchboards and potentially delayed emergency calls long before there was a “911” to call instead.

In the 1970s, phone companies began to realize they were giving away a lot of information for free, and with some numbers getting tens of thousands of calls a day, that meant leaving money on the table.  And so began “recorded information message charges,” typically around 8.3-25 cents cents a call (phone companies always round up no matter what) charged when customers dialed numbers with prefixes of 974 or 976.  Later still, the 900 area code would open the door to even more expensive pay-per-minute services.

Some phone companies charged for the local time and weather, others gave away the local forecast for free.

For Washington, D.C. residents, Verizon’s local weather line died a quiet death last week.  Callers to (202) 936-1212 now hear a message telling them the number has been disconnected.  And so ends an era.

It’s not to be completely unexpected.  Smartphone owners can get the time or weather just by looking at their phones.  The Weather Channel and NOAA Weather Radio provides much the same service 24-hours a day.  Some cities have competing weather lines each delivering the weather to interested callers.

But Verizon’s 936 number has become so ingrained in local residents’ heads, it’s now a valuable commodity one company wants to purchase.

Telecompute, which runs recorded information lines across the country, wants to pick up where Verizon left off.  They are attempting to negotiate with the phone company to acquire that magic 936 number for their own weather line, already running at (202) 589-1212.  But that’s no 936 number.

If you believe the Internet age has made the concept of recorded information lines obsolete, and Verizon certainly thinks that’s true, you might be surprised to learn Telecompute’s lesser-known, existing weather line receives over 2,000 calls a day.  That’s welcome news for Howard Phoebus, the veteran forecaster who will keep his job providing customers in the District, Virginia, and Maryland their daily forecast.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/976-8881 Commercial.mp4[/flv]

A commercial for a California 976 dial-a-date number.  Warning: 80’s feathered hair and fashions may cause allergic reactions in some viewers.  (1 minute)