Storm of Interest Builds Over Weather Channel Sale

Landmark has retained investment banks J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers to assist in exploring strategic alternatives, the company said. Potential suitors for the Weather Channel and Weather.com, which together could bring in as much as US$5 billion, include NBC, News Corp. and Comcast, according to a report in the New York Times.

Launched in 1982, the Weather Channel is currently one of the last privately owned cable channels.

Continuing Investments

"At this early stage, we cannot speculate on where this process will lead," said Landmark chairman and CEO Frank Batten, Jr. "We will consider various options and, at the end, we will advise employees and customers of our conclusions.

"Landmark's weather, publishing, broadcasting, interactive and information businesses all have leading positions in their markets and have strong growth opportunities," Batten added. "As we go through this process, we will continue to invest in these operations."

Based in Norfolk, Va., Landmark is a privately held diversified media and business services company with interests in cable programming, newspapers, broadcasting, specialty classified advertising products, interactive marketing, information, broadband and data services.

The company generated $1.75 billion in revenue in 2006 and has 12,000 employees, according to Hoover's (Nasdaq: HOOV) .

Broad Reach

The Weather Channel's Weather.com was the 16th most popular U.S. Web site in November, with more than 34 million unique visitors that month, according to comScore Media Metrix. Facebook , by comparison, ranked in 17th place, with roughly 33.7 million.

In addition to the Weather Channel and Weather.com, Landmark's holdings include WSI Corporation, which provides business-to-business weather services; CBS-TV affiliates NewsChannel5 Network in Nashville, Tenn., and KLAS-TV in Las Vegas; Q Interactive, a leading Internet-based direct marketing company; several franchise recruitment Web sites; and Continental Broadband.

Landmark's newspapers include The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot, the Greensboro, (N.C.) News & Record, The Roanoke (Va.) Times, and Capital-Gazette Communications, which publishes more than 50 community newspapers. Landmark also owns Dominion Enterprises, a media and information services company serving employment, real estate, automotive, recreation and industrial markets.

'A Multimonth Process'

Landmark officials met with staffers at the on Thursday to discuss the possible sale, noting that one could be completed as early as this summer, according to a front-page story in the newspaper.

Officials declined, however, to say why the decision was made to explore the potential sale at this time, the article said.

"We just now are starting the strategic review," Richard Barry, vice chairman of Landmark Communications, told the E-Commerce Times. "This is day one of a multimonth process. No decisions have been made and will not be made until we are further down the road."

'The Right Fit'

"I think this is a great idea," Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst with In-Stat, told the E-Commerce Times. "If I had to wager who I think the winner ought to be, I'd come down in favor of NBC."

NBC already has a weather-related unit -- NBC Weather Plus -- including a cable channel and a Web site, Kaufhold pointed out. As a result, it will likely be the most aggressive bidder, he added.

"NBC has actually put a big chunk of change into weather," Kaufhold said. "I really believe NBC is the right fit if they can pull it off. It would be a real jewel for them to get their hands on."

Whoever buys the Weather Channel in the end, they would do well to start incorporating more global coverage, Kaufhold asserted, such as of recent category 5 storms in southern Mexico and last summer's record flooding in Great Britain.

"This is my pet peeve," he said. "Weather is a global phenomenon. If you're the Weather Channel, by gosh, then you need to show us all the darn weather."