Report: The Weather Channel Could On The Block

Sam Champion, TWC

The two large equity funds that own majority interest in The Weather Channel have been considering selling their stake for at least a year, an informed source tells The Hollywood Reporter.

That gives credence to a Friday report by Bloomberg that Blackstone Group and Bain Capital have talked with JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs about representing them for a possible sale.

Bloomberg reported that The Weather Channel (TWC) could be sold separately from a weather data service. Besides the cable channel, TWC owns Weather.com, Weather Underground, Intellicast.com, WeatherScan and Weather Services International, which provides weather forecasts.

It is possible that this is just an exercise to determine the value of the service, which reaches about 100 million U.S. TV homes, as well as possible interest. In the end they may decide not to sell.

The channel was last sold in 2008 for about $3.5 billion and is believed to still be worth about the same amount.

In 2013, TWC averaged about 213,000 viewers a day, which is down slightly from over 260,000 in 2011. It sells ads not just on the size of the audience but also the quality. The channel regularly sees a spike in viewership when bad weather hits.

However, weather is a commodity, and it is available from many sources, which presents a challenge to TWC.