From the ArcaMax Publishing, News & Features Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/newsheadlines/s-374360-709226
NEW YORK (UPI) -- Skies are sunny for NBC Universal and two private
equity firms after they sealed a multibillion-dollar deal for The
Weather Channel, Wall Street sources said.
NBC and the private equity firms Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group
will pony up nearly $3.5 billion, people briefed on the matter told
The New York Times. If that is the correct purchase price, it is less
than the $5 billion that The Weather Channel's parent, Landmark
Communications, sought in January when it offered for sale the cable
channel and related properties such as weather.com.
More than half of the price will be paid in equity, to be divided
roughly equally among the three buyers, sources told the Times.
The Weather Channel is the leading brand of weather information on
television, reaching 96 million households on basic cable, Landmark
said. Weather.com gets nearly 40 million hits a month.
Terms of the deal call for The Weather Channel to be run as an
independent operation instead of being merged with NBC Weather Plus,
which was set up to challenge The Weather Channel, but was more of an
also-ran. Plans for NBC Weather Plus have not been determined, NBC
official said.