The Weather Channel has cannibalized its audience with a pretty good website. It's a lot more efficient to interrogate the website than to wait for the broadcast to cycle around to whatever you are interested in.
There are a lot of meteorologists with passable looks and adequate diction out there, and there were many at the time that Ms. Stanier was hired. The Weather Channel had some standards for attractiveness then, and right or wrong, those standards have changed. When she went into the business it was already post-Christine Craft - so the whole world was on notice that in the television business - ratings rule. And if ratings reflect popular tastes, and popular tastes select for youth and beauty...
The Weather Channel is owned by a privately held firm - Landmark Communications. Since they are not public - there is little widely known about their financial performance. The last comment I saw in The Wall Street Journal about the firm was the observation that it had a substantial gross profit margin. I would think they should be profitable - they don't have to pay the talent that much - they get data streams from NOAA and other government subsidized sources - and their sets are cheap.
I suspect Landmark will tire of the publicity and will settle this - with Stanier getting more than her suit deserves on the legal merits. The videotape segments on her lawyer's website are pretty embarrassing.
This is the way it is in TV and any moron is on notice that is it so. If older women do not cut it ratings wise - they will not be on the air. End of story.
I used to think Kristina Abernathy was hot. Now I like the young hotties.