Business News and Information

The possible sale of Landmark Communications by the Batten family, one of the last privately owned communications companies and parent of The Weather Channel was announced today.

While Landmark Communications also owns several daily newspapers of limited circulation in North Carolina and Virginia, as well as other nondaily publications, clearly its biggest draw is The Weather Channel and it’s well established website, Weather.com. A post from The New York Times notes Weather.com is the 18^th-largest media site by traffic in the United States, outpacing Facebook and CNN.

It’s projected the sale could garner more than $5 billion. A boon for the Batten family, though the sale of The Weather Channel may prove a loss to the public.

Besides providing weather information, some of the programming on The Weather Channel is about global warming -- I refuse to say “climate change,” it’s a crock invented to lull is back into gentle submission, like saying “collateral damage” instead of just saying innocent civilians and children were killed. If The Weather Channel is bought by News Corp (NYSE:NWS.A), the media conglomerate founded by Rupert Murdoch, does one really have to wonder what will happen to such programs?

One only need to look at what happened at The Wall Street Journal after Murdoch acquired Dow Jones to see his leadership style favors blunt force and coercion while his mode operandi is to promote his political stance rather than uphold the tenets of ethical journalism.

Landmark Communications employs 12,000 people, 800 of whom work for The Weather Channel.