NBC And Time Warner (TWX) Battle For The Weather Channel

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Late word is that The Weather Channel will be sold to either GE’s (GE) NBCU unit, in partnership with Blackstone (BX), or to Time Warner (TWX).

According to Reuters, "The winning bid is expected to range between $3.5 billion and $4 billion, but closer to $3.5 billion, one source said." Assuming that the number is a reasonable multiple of cash-flow, getting the company would be a brilliant deal.

While a recession may hurt some TV revenue from VOD operations and programming like The Home Shopping Network, the need for weather information should remain constant. The same is true with online operation Weather.com. Ebay (EBAY) and other e-commerce firms may get banged up, but getting forecasts online is part of a great American tradition that predates the web and goes back to the Farmer’s Almanac. As a matter of fact, the book is probably still more accurate.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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