Word: weatherizing
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...apparently the limit when media conglomerate NBC Universal, along with private equity firms Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group, agreed on Sunday to pay the enormous $3.5 billion price tag for The Weather Channel. Available in some 96 million American homes, the Weather Channel is the country's third most widely distributed cable channel. It also runs the 14th most popular site on the web, weather.com. But observers are already questioning whether NBC, which is owned by General Electric, overpaid for the property. NBC, after all, only paid $1.25 billion for the cable channel Bravo in 2002, while CBS acquired...
...have other motivations for its new acquisition - particularly on the Web and in digital broadcasts. While consumers have little reason to type nbc.com into their browsers, The Weather Channel's site attracts some 40 million unique monthly visitors, according to Nielsen Online. The merger could help drive new traffic to NBC's other digital content. What's more, The Weather Channel, which is currently owned by Landmark Communications, has a brand-new $60 million state-of-the-art, high-definition recording studio in Atlanta, from which it can produce digital broadcasts both for television and the Web. Viewers can also...
With rumors running rife about General Electric planning to unload NBC Universal altogether, some analysts think The Weather Channel acquisition was an effort to spruce up NBC's online portfolio (which also includes MSNBC.com and CNBC.com) before selling the entertainment arm to a digital media company such as Google (which owns YouTube) or Apple. "The Weather Channel would add some icing to the cake," says Nicholas Heymann, an analyst for Sterne Agee & Leach. As syndication fees have evaporated and profit margins have thinned, TV companies have become less attractive assets. GE "has to start lighting a fire under its stock...
Although $3.5 billion is a huge sum, NBC will foot only a fraction of the total bill. The Blackstone Group, Bain Capital, and NBC will reportedly pay just $600 million each upfront, and finance the balance. The Weather Channel's estimated $175 million annual earnings should help defray the debt...
...media category killer. Sheryl Crow named a song after it in 2002, and today it has an estimated 85 million viewers, many of whom are more than happy to tune in numerous times each day. It has also successfully adapted with the times: the channel's free, ad-supported weather service for cell phones is currently its fastest growing business, according to Anstrom...