news-record.com

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The family that owns Norfolk, Va.,-based Landmark Communications is exploring a sale of the company's businesses, including The Weather Channel and nine daily newspapers that include the News & Record.

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Frank Batten Jr., Landmark's chairman and CEO, said in a statement Thursday that the privately held company has retained JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers to help it look into possible sale scenarios.

"At this early stage, we cannot speculate on where this process will lead," said Batten, whose father helped build the company after taking over as publisher of the local newspaper in 1954.

Robin Saul, the News & Record's publisher, spent Thursday afternoon meeting with employees and managers. He said Landmark officers began considering the move in November, and he learned of the plan on Dec. 13.

Landmark would be willing to sell its big daily newspapers in Greensboro, Norfolk and Roanoke, Va. separately if that's what buyers were interested in, Saul said. Batten has specifically said he does not want the companies to be sold to private equity firms whose only goal is to turn a quick profit and sell the newspapers, Saul said.

"Their preference is to engage businesses that want to run the properties we own," Saul said. "They would prefer the investor to be an ongoing entity."

Saul said that until further decisions are made, the News & Record will do "business as usual."

"We run this business the best we can for our employees, our shareholders and our community" Saul Said. "And that's not going to change."

Landmark's vice chairman, Richard F. Barry III, said Batten would have no further comment, except to the Norfolk-based Virginian-Pilot, Landmark's flagship newspaper.

In an interview, Barry declined to say why a sale was being considered.

"This will all come out as this thing unfolds," Barry told The Associated Press. "This is Day One of a multi-month process."

Barry said he did not know how much Landmark could make by selling its largest asset, The Weather Channel.

This might not be the best market for newspaper sales, said Rick Edmonds, the media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"This is not a great time to try to sell a newspaper," he said. "You have a nice house and the real estate market in your town has been crummy, so do you sell or wait for things to get better?"

Such big-media companies as The McClatchy Co. made their big deals within the past few years and are busy paying off debt and digesting their new holdings, Edmonds said. McClatchy bought Knight Ridder Inc.'s 32 daily newspapers, including the Charlotte Observer, in 2006. It immediately sold 12 of those papers. McClatchy already owned the News & Observer of Raleigh.

"The pool of buyers especially those who might pay a nice premium as goes with these sales, I don't think that's very deep right now," he said.

In addition, newspaper profits have been steadily dropping over the past several years, and the industry is making a transition into unknown territory with Internet marketing. That will require money for ventures that may or may not pay off - not necessarily a buyer magnet.

Whether Landmark's ultimate goal is to sell every facet of the company or only the Weather Channel, the process could take months. Edmonds said the initial evaluation by consultants will take about four months. That means producing financial information about Landmark even more detailed than the company usually maintains.

After that, the company would have to look for the best bidders and complete any deals, which could take months more.

The New York Times reported Thursday that The Weather Channel could fetch more than $5 billion and is attracting interest from several parties, including General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, News Corp. and the cable TV company Comcast Corp. The Times cited unidentified people briefed on the matter.

Several other media companies have also been sold recently, including Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $5 billion. Real estate magnate Sam Zell recently took control of the newly private Tribune Co., which owns nine daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and 23 television stations.

The Weather Channel's Web site, Weather.com, had more than 32 million unique users in November and ranks as the nation's 18th-largest media site by traffic, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Debora J. Wilson, The Weather Channel's chief executive, told The New York Times in June: "Every media conglomeration has approached Landmark, and there's never been a yes. We actually think that we're stronger being independent."

The company, which had $1.75 billion in sales in 2006, employs about 12,000, according to Hoover's, a business reference service. It is parent to The News & Record along with eight other daily papers, including its Norfolk-based flagship, The Virginian-Pilot, and The Roanoke Times in Virginia, and more than 100 nondaily newspapers and specialty publications.

"While I am saddened about this development, I understand and agree with the business reasons for exploring these options," Bruce Bradley, publisher of The Pilot and a Landmark employee for 34 years, told The Virginian-Pilot. Bradley's secretary said Thursday that he would have no additional comment.

In addition to The Weather Channel and its Web site, Landmark owns television stations in Las Vegas and Nashville, Tenn., and Norfolk-based Dominion Enterprises, a national chain of classified-ad publications.

Staff writer Richard M. Barron contributed to this story.