Landmark goes up for sale

Anything further revealed in the conference call?

 

It is my understanding that nobody really saw this coming and nobody really knows what's going on or what to expect. It was stated that landmark will not be broken up though.

 

I will believe that when the Landmark assets are still under the same ownership 12 months from now ... remember Paxton's comments at the time they bought Durham -- they said "no changes are expected in the near future." A few weeks later, the corporate chain saws started cutting employees right and left ...

 

Now is the time to dump the Weather Channel and take your billions...many TV stations have their own weather subchannel, you'd have to think that the Weather Channel brand has grown as much as it could.

 

I work for a Landmark paper in Kentucky. They've had two meetings already today and one more scheduled for later tonight.

It's just an eerie feeling in the newsroom right now, I guess that's what you'd call it.

I just hope we don't wind up in the hands of Gannett.

 

Say goodbye to covering UK games if they do.

I'm SO glad I don;t work for Landmark right now. Well, I've been glad every day since I left, and naturally went to a worse company. It wasn't CNHI, BTW.

 

We are all just waiting to see how it plays out here, but you can also say walking on eggshells

 

I cover UK like once in a blue moon, but that would suck if we can't cover them or Louisville. We have many UK and U of L alums in our area, and we would lose readers if we didn't have that coverage.

 

PalmettoStatesport, when they said Landmark would not be broken up were they referring to Landmark Community Newspapers Inc., or Landmark Communications?

It's my understanding people at the larger papers were told today that the community papers (LCNI) are to be sold as a package and that the metros may go with them or may be sold individually, and that the Weather Channel is probably going to be sold by itself.

Haven't heard anything about the TV stations or other random small businesses.

 

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.

Frank Batten Jr., Landmark's chairman and CEO, said in a statement today 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.

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

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.

The New York Times reported today 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.

 

To some companies, that doesn't seem to matter much. If it did, we'd all be in a lot better shape, even at the places that still focus on serving the customers.

 

Oh I know. I was just throwing that fact out there.

Apparently, our own ME doesn't think we should be covering UK/UL as much as we do. He thought it was bad of us to be covering UK football as much this season when Andre Woodson is from our area. Think about the backlash from the community if we didn't cover him...