Media Money
- LinkedIn Earnings Bode Well for Hiring and Social Media
- News Corp. Beats Estimates on Studio, Cable Strength
- Disney’s Earnings Beat; CEO Bob Iger Talks Piracy, Parks
- Ahead of Disney’s Earnings: Ads and Cable Revenue at the Magic Kingdom
- Coinstar Beats Earnings Forecast on Redbox Growth
- After The Super Bowl: Who’s Buying?
- Super Bowl XLVI: It's All About the Second Screen
- The Super Bowl's Big Advertising Winners: Super Sunday Ad Tracker
- A Sneak Peek at Facebook's New Headquarters
- Twitter’s CEO Weighs in on Google, Censorship Ahead of Facebook IPO
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- Consumer Sentiment Falters, Despite Job Growth
- Bill Murray's View on the Economy
- Santelli's Morning Bond Report
- Videogame Sales Fell 34 Percent in January
- Steelers' Antonio Brown Spends Super Bowl Week with Twitter Fan Turned BFF
- Home of the Oscars Battles For Kodak Sponsorship
- Greek Police Union Wants to Arrest EU, IMF Officials
- Stocks Stumble as Greek Talks Stall; Vix Soars
- How to Date a Wall Street Man
- Bonus Question Dogs Barclays’ CEO Bob Diamond
- The Real Reason Behind Bank of America’s Rally
- 5 Hedge Funds’ Top Stocks Soar After 2011 Rout
- This Valentine’s Day Love Is Served on a Silver Platter
- CEO to CEO: Our Roles Are Changing
- Clint Eastwood ‘Surprised’ by Reaction to Chrysler's ‘Halftime in America’ Ad
- Bulls Check In to Community Health
- Bank of America’s Worst-Case Scenario Gets More Real
- Tesla Unveils First SUV: Model X
- New York Fashion Week Hits the Runway as Colors Pop
- Greece Austerity Deal Runs Into Trouble Once Again
- Obama Exempts Religious Employers on Birth Control
- Get Ready for $5 Gas This Year: Ex-Shell CEO
- Diamond Investing: Why It's Not for the Faint of Heart
- Israel Likely to Bomb Iran This Year: Political Analyst
- The World's Best Beers
- SEC Reaches Settlement in Bear Stearns Fraud Case
- Bonus Bloodbath: Europe Banker Backlash Continues
- Rep. Bachus Faces Insider Trading Probe: Report
Weather Channel: Why It Might Be Worth A $5 Billion Deal
Correspondent
![]() |
CNBC.com |
I'm hardly special that way as I was just one of 32 million unique users that weather.com had last November, making the site more popular than CNN or Facebook. This fast-growing site is one reason that the Weather Channel, could bring in $5 billion dollars at the auction block for its private owner, Landmark Communications. Five billion dollars--that's as much as News Corp [NWS
Loading...
()
] paid for Dow Jones.
Why the high valuation? People care about the weather. According to the former chief strategist at the company, who I talked to, the cable channel's revenues are over $300 million while its web site brings in over $100 million and growing fast.
Plus, there's its business-to-business service that sells weather forecasts to everyone from energy traders to insurance companies. And then there's the potential growth of mobile weather delivery to phones and PDFs like the iPhone.
All the media giants could be interested bidders. CNBC's parent NBC, is expected to be particularly interested since its Weather Plus unit never really took off. News Corp already made a deal for its MySpace to get weather.com info--it could use the company on Fox news as well as all its affiliates.
And Time Warner could be a natural buyer, if only because both the Weather Channel and its Turner cable networks are all based in Atlanta. Comcast [CMCSA
Loading...
()
] , even Yahoo [YHOO
Loading...
()
] could be interested. The company may make a statement as early as today about the sale, but it is a private company, so don't expect much info until a deal is done.
Questions? Comments?











