Its Official: IBM to buy Weather Channel data & analytics assets

Tom Paine

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Officially announced: IBM is buying The Weather Company's tech & data assets to integrate with Watson.

IBM lays out a rather detailed game plan for what it plans are for the Weather Channel assets here. (BTW, that document was available online last night, minus the purchase announcement). The plan envisions specific services tailored to vertical consumer and business markets. This is another set of apps for its Watson analytical engine (I guess that what I should call it). Of course, I've learned that IBM, like the Pentagon, is great at making detailed plans. The key is execution.

Although terms were not announced, previous reports estimated the price to be in the $2 billion range.

Comcast's NBC owns about 1/3 of TWC, along with two private equity firms who own the rest. The deal would only include TWC's weather data and various analytical tools, not the broadcasting operation.

You might be happy to hear that Al Roker wasn't included in the deal, but his show was dropped late last month anyway, though he'll continue to make mobile-only video clips in the morning. TWC's owners (Bain and The Blackstone Group, both very smart, have been Comcast's PE partners) have been unhappy with broadcast ops, though I think their own missteps have added to the problems. A major programming overhaul began in September.

The three current owners paid a bit less than $3.5 billion in 2008 to acquire TWC from Landmark Communications, according to a report at the time in the New York Times.