More Videos
- Eric Schmidt + Larry Page on Revolutionizing Computing
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Twitter in the Sun Valley Spotlight
- Sun Valley Dealmaking Confab Kicks Off
- Making Money on Michael Jackson's Memorial
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Another Music Lawsuit, but with an Unexpected Target
- Will Newspaper Readers Pay For Digital Content?
- Is Google Hurting Book Publishers?
- Supreme Court's Ruling A Blow To Big Media
|
CNBC'S MOST SHARED
- Investing in Tech Now
- Apartment Vacancy Rate Hits 22-Year High
- Warren Buffett's Complete Sun Valley CNBC Interview - Transcript and Video
- Software Giants Rush to Cash In on Carbon-Trading
- Warren Buffett Tells CNBC Consumer Sales Remain "Very, Very Soft"
- What You'll See On My NASCAR Documentary Tonight
- Warren Buffett: Economy Needs Another Dose of Viagra
- Preparing for Retirement
- Cramer?s Outrage
- July 10th in Market History
- Warren Buffett's Complete Sun Valley CNBC Interview - Transcript and Video
- Warren Buffett Tells CNBC Consumer Sales Remain "Very, Very Soft"
- July 10th in Market History
- Microsoft Plays a Game of Bing Pong
- Options Smell 'Blood' on Infosys
- Christmas in July: Consumers To Out-Scrooge Scrooge
- GM's Second Chance
- Art Cashin: Traders Weigh Obama Policy Changes
- Warren Buffett: Economy Needs Another Dose of Viagra
.ll_medium.jpg)
- SEC, CFTC to Police Over-the Counter Derivatives
- AIG Prepares to Pay More Bonuses to Executives
- China Demands Currency Reform, France Backs Debate
- IEA Sees Global Oil Demand Bouncing Back in 2010
- UBS Can't Comply with US Request: Internal Memo
- Treasury Sold Warrants Below Market Value: Panel
- New Inquiries into Murdoch Paper Phone Hacking Case?
- China Accuses Rio Staff of Bribing Steelmakers
- Assets Are Less Toxic, but Banks Have Other Troubles
RSS FEED
Text Size 
 |
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?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes