Good early morning bloggers,
NBC is buying The Weather Channel: Story below!
When I awakened this morning, thunderstorms were active with a lot of lightning right near downtown Kansas City (picture of our American Century Investments Skyview at 5:30 AM above, and a rainbow caused by a rainshaft over eastern Douglas county at 6:40 AM). Somehow they formed right over the city, and then moved off to the northeast with torrential rainfall. There is another band of showers and thunderstorms moving up from the southwest, but these are trying to track along and north of I-35 and the Missouri River. We will be tracking this all morning on NBC Action News.
NBC is buying The Weather Channel:
NBC Universal and two partners said Sunday they have reached a deal to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications Inc., ending a drawn-out process that had attracted interest from several major media companies. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity, said the purchase price was $3.5 billion in cash. NBC was joined in the deal by private equity firms The Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC.
NBC already operates a digital weather and news service called NBC Weather Plus that was launched in 2004 and would make a logical fit with The Weather Channel. NBC Weather Plus is owned by NBC and its affiliated TV stations and can be seen on digital cable services and digital subchannels operated by NBC stations.
NBC and Landmark said in a statement that The Weather Channel would be operated as a separate entity out of its base in Atlanta. They said they expected the transaction to close by year-end, pending regulatory approvals.
What does this mean for NBC Action Weather Plus? We will have to wait and see, but this is good news for NBC and NBC Action News. Have a great start to your day.
Gary