After a 48-year hiatus as a weatherman, Disney’s Bob Iger tells us it’s going to rain
Yes, that was former Disney CEO Bob Iger delivering the weather report on KABC-7 in Los Angeles this morning — and gamely opening up the possibility of a late-in-life career switch.
The 70-year-old, who is set to step down as Disney’s executive chairman of the board at the end of the month, brushed up on his weatherman skills to deliver the day’s forecast to rain-soaked Angelenos — much to the delight of the local anchors.
Iger visited his “favorite news station” to talk about his transformative 47-year stint at Disney and ABC. KABC meteorologist Leslie Lopez then invited “The Ride of a Lifetime” author to give her on-air duties a try.
Bob Iger transformed Disney during his 15-year tenure as CEO; now he’s handing the reins to Bob Chapek, who led the company’s parks division for nearly five years.
The former weatherman, who admitted that he was “not a very good one,” started his career in 1973 at a cable station in Ithaca, N.Y., and joined ABC in 1974, 22 years before Disney acquired the network. After what he called a “48-year hiatus,” he delivered the morning weather report pretty seamlessly — though with little eye contact to the right camera — and with a healthy fear that he might “disappoint the Southland.”
“So you can see there’s light rain falling across the Southland this morning, expected to get just a little bit heavier as the day progresses,” he recited. “However, this is just a prelude to a big storm that should be coming through the Southland Monday and into Tuesday morning.”
Indeed, Iger effortlessly gesticulated and took a look at temperatures across the region, with the ever-changing map updating behind him showing viewers temps in Lake Elsinore, Riverside, Glendale, Oxnard and Thousand Oaks, as well as the full seven-day forecast.
When Bob Iger replaced Michael Eisner as CEO of Disney, many considered him a lightweight who lacked the creative chops. How did he transform from low-key, under-rated CEO to one of America’s most successful CEOs?
Iger also shared anecdotal observations about how the inclement weather would affect his bike-riding plans on Saturday but celebrated the arrival of snow for the holidays — just like an ideal weather reporter would.
Lopez told him he did great, but Iger humbly admitted that he would just “watch dutifully.”
“By the way, I started as a weatherman when I was 23 years old,” he joked with Lopez. “So the possibility exists that you could become the CEO of the Walt Disney Company.”
The complete guide to home viewing
Get Screen Gab for everything about the TV shows and streaming movies everyone’s talking about.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
