NBC Universal and buyout firms Bain Capital LLC and Blackstone Group LP agreed to buy the Weather Channel from Landmark Communications Inc, adding a cable network that reaches 96 million households.
The purchase price was about US$3.5 billion, according to a person who asked not to be identified because the terms weren’t made public. The channel will be based in Atlanta and NBC Universal will provide management, the companies said in a statement yesterday.
With the purchase, General Electric Co’s NBC can bolster the company’s own NBC Weather Plus channel and Web site.
Landmark’s Weather.com drew 36.4 million US viewers in May, Reston, Virginia-based researcher ComScore Inc said, making it the 15th most-popular Internet property.
NBC sites, excluding iVillage.com, didn’t rank in the top 50.
“It could embellish their presence,” said James Goss, an analyst with Barrington Research in Chicago, in an interview before the announcement.
The deal also removes the Weather Channel as a competitor, he said.
Representatives of the buyers declined to comment beyond the statement, while Landmark spokesman Richard Barry couldn’t be reached for comment.
Landmark hired JPMorgan Chase & Co and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in January to seek buyers for the Weather Channel and review options to boost the value of the entire Norfolk, Virginia-based company.
Owned by the Batten family, Landmark has said the entire company may be broken up and sold, including its newspapers and TV stations.
Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE rose US$0.40 to US$26.91 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Thursday. The shares have fallen 27 percent this year.
Blackstone, the New York-based firm that went public at the peak of the takeover boom last year, fell US$0.09 to US$17.23. The stock is down 22 percent this year.
Closely held Bain is based in Boston.
NBC, based in New York, and the buyout firms became the lone contenders after Time Warner Inc, the world’s largest media company, dropped its bid on June 13. The same day, Landmark said it was in “exclusive talks” with the NBC-led group. The Batten family initially sought as much as US$5 billion for the channel and Web site, the New York Times said on May 31.
Weather.com, created in 1995, syndicates its current conditions and forecasts to more than 100 million users of News Corp’s MySpace. The Weather Channel also runs sites for vacation rentals, climate-change discussions and international weather.
Weather.com is “the most highly coveted asset in the Landmark transaction, as the Web site is likely to serve as the growth driver moving forward,” Lehman analysts Anthony DiClemente and Vijay Jayant wrote in a January report when the sale was announced.
Landmark has said it plans to sell separately its CBS-affiliated TV stations in Las Vegas and Nashville, Tennessee.
Started in 1982 by billionaire Frank Batten Sr, the Weather Channel provides 24-hour programming. The network, with about 110 meteorologists among its 800 employees, started a high-definition channel in October.
Landmark had US$1.75 billion in sales in 2006 and 12,000 employees, Hoover’s Inc says.
Batten, a Norfolk native, took over as publisher of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 1954 at age 27 and proceeded to build Landmark Communications. He stepped down as chairman and CEO of Landmark in 1998, handing the positions to his son, Frank Batten Jr.
Landmark also owns the Roanoke Times in Virginia and the News & Record in North Carolina.
Deutsche Bank AG acted as the lead financial adviser along with Allen & Co and Credit Suisse Group AG for NBC, Bain Capital and Blackstone.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary