NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. cable channel The Weather Channel is to be put up for sale and could fetch more than 5 billion, The New York Times said in an online report on Thursday, quoting people briefed on the auction.
Media companies such as NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., News Corp., and Comcast Corp are interested in The Weather Channel and its popular Web site, weather.com, the report said.
A representative for the company, a privately owned cable channel, was not immediately available for comment.
The report quoted sources as saying the sale was part of a break-up of the Weather Channels parent, Landmark Communications, a privately held company based in Norfolk, Virginia, that owns community newspapers and other media assets.
JPMorgan Chase is advising Landmark on the sale of The Weather Channel, while Lehman Brothers is advisor on the sale of its other media assets, it said.
(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando, editing by Will Waterman)
