As a business person (not a met) I can attest that there are inherant risks to allowing the private sector to provide weather forecasting. At some point financial pressure will come to bear from advertisers or sponsors.

Imagine if you will that a big advertiser is a building supply retailer (say Plywood Depot)... a large hurricane starts heading for the east coast. Plywood Depot would love to see the initial forecast for Miami... then shifted to Daytona... then changed to Jax.... then to Savannah... then Charleston.... creating a panic and unecessary runs on plywood over 1,200 miles of the east coast.

I think you get the point...Plywood Depot triples sales on the east coast, and the hurricane eventually hits where it would have gone anyway. The same thing could potentially happen if the sponsors were Duracell, Coleman, BP, Chevron, Publix, etc...

Keep the forecasting in the hands of those with no vested interest in the path of the storms...