Landmark completes sale of The Weather Channel to NBC

It's in NBC's hands now.

Landmark Communications Inc. announced Friday that it has closed on the sale of The Weather Channel Cos. to NBC Universal and two private equity firms, The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital.

Landmark, a privately held diversified media company that also publishes The Virginian-Pilot, had announced the agreement in July. The sales price was not disclosed, but people close to the parties said it was about $3.5 billion.

With the completion of the transaction, Landmark Communications has transferred all of its remaining businesses to Landmark Media Enterprises LLC. That was necessitated by the sale of Landmark's stock to the NBC consortium, said Richard F. Barry III, vice chairman of Landmark.

Changing to a partnership structure, Barry said, will not affect the employees or the leadership of the company. "It's really form over substance," he said.

The name Landmark Communications was born in 1967, when Norfolk-Portsmouth Newspapers Inc., which then published The Virginian-Pilot, changed its corporate identity to reflect the company's expansion into broadcasting and newspapers outside the area. The name came from The Norfolk Landmark, a newspaper that merged with The Pilot in 1912.

In January, Landmark Communications officials announced that they were looking to sell the company's properties. At the time, Landmark had more than 9,000 employees. About 1,300 were with The Weather Channel and its associated businesses, most in Atlanta.

The Weather Channel Cos. was Landmark's most lucrative asset, accounting for about one-quarter of its 2007 revenues, which topped $2 billion. The weather businesses are expected to produce $550 million in revenues this year.

The constellation of companies includes the 26-year-old Weather Channel, which reaches 96 million households, and its associated Web site, Weather.com.

It also includes Weather Services International Corp., based in Andover, Mass., which provides weather data to local TV stations and cable networks, and Enterprise Electronics Corp., in Enterprise, Ala., which markets radar systems worldwide.

Before taking effect, the sale needed the approval of government bodies including the U.S. Justice Department, which looks into antitrust issues, the Federal Communications Commission and the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Barry said.

NBC did not issue a formal announcement Friday, and a spokeswoman did not return calls. Alan Breznick, senior analyst for Heavy Reading, a marketing research firm, predicted few changes at The Weather Channel.

"I don't think NBC is going to mess with them much, at least not at first," Breznick said. "The Weather Channel is a pretty well-known and respected brand."

But NBC, he said, may begin to feature Weather Channel reports, particularly on disasters. And when characters in an NBC sitcom are seen watching the weather on TV, "they might be watching The Weather Channel now."

Since Landmark said it would seek to sell its properties, the company has announced sales agreements for three other subsidiaries. The most prominent was the CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tenn, which Bonten Media Group Inc. in New York has agreed to purchase. That transaction recently received FCC approval, Barry said, but has not been completed.

Aside from The Pilot, Landmark's businesses include dozens of other daily, military, weekly and community newspapers, including The Roanoke Times; a Las Vegas TV station affiliated with CBS; and Dominion Enterprises, an information and marketing services company based in Norfolk.

Barry declined to say when Landmark expected to announce future sales agreements, but said, "Many of these transactions are well along." Barry also would not identify bidders, their offers or whether the bids met expectations of Landmark officials.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com