Weather Channel bought
Cable TV, which once promised to be this multiplicity of independent voices, has dwindled down to a half dozen owners, mostly the usual media suspects: Disney/ABC, GE.NBC, Viacom, Time-Warner, Comcast, News Corp. So it's significant when one of the few generally distributed basic cable channels gets bought out.
This time it is the Weather Channel, bought by NBC Universal, along with some private equity partners. The deal is for $3.5 billion - apparently this network has loyal fans and brings in a substantial ad revenue. The deal includes the Web site weather.com.
Actually, the price is down since the Weather's Channels owner, Landmark Communications, wanted to sell it for $5 billion earlier this year. NBC beat out Time warner.925 deal.
Last year NBC acquired women's channel Oxygen in a $925 million deal. It recently announced it would sell its share in the Sundance (independent movie) channel.
A side note on further consolidation comes from a Wall Street Journal article (" NBC-Led Group Will Buy The Weather Channel," 7/7/08):
Attention in the media industry is expected to turn to a long-awaited sale of the Scripps cable-television business, which includes HGTV and the Food Network. Several media companies have signaled that they would be interested if it went up for sale, a factor that may have made some bidders less willing to aggressively bid for the Weather Channel.
After it looked like media consolidation was on hold, it seems to be back on track, at least in a modest way.
