Speaking of divestitures:
Thursday is the day that the
latest round of bidding is reportedly supposed to close for Landmark Communication Inc.'s Weather Channel. Preliminary bids for the Weather Channel were due in March. An early report in
The New York Times said potential suitors included NBC, CBS, the Walt Disney Co., Time Warner Inc., Comcast Corp. and Liberty Media Corp.
Privately owned Landmark was hoping to get maybe
$5 billion for the channel, part of an overall effort to restructure. Other Landmark units include CBS-TV affiliates NewsChannel5 Network in Nashville and KLAS-TV in Las Vegas; Q Interactive, an Internet-based direct marketing company; a number of franchise recruitment Web sites; and Continental Broadband. Landmark also owns a number of newspapers including The Virginian-Pilot, the Greensboro News & Record, The Roanoke Times and Capital-Gazette Communications, which publishes more than 50 community newspapers. Landmark also owns Dominion Enterprises, a media and information services company.
There are
rumors that Landmark may also divest TV stations, metro daily newspapers and community newspapers to other buyers.
Three trusts
overseen by Frank Batten and son Frank Batten Jr. hold
90% of the company's voting stock. More than half of all
Landmark stock, including those shares without voting rights, is owned
by trusts controlled by members of the Batten family; employees own the remaining shares. The Batten's
tapped J.P. Morgan for advice on the Weather Channel sale, and Lehman Brothers Inc. is advising on its other media divestitures.
- Maria Woehr
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