| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Genre | Media |
| Founded | 1905 |
| Founder(s) | Samuel L. Slover, Frank Batten |
| Headquarters | 150 Granby Street Norfolk, Virginia 23510-2075 |
Landmark Media Enterprises LLC (formerly Landmark Communications) is a privately held media company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in cable television, broadcast television, print publishing, and internet publishing. In addition to publishing, it has subsidiaries in what Landmark characterizes as "emerging businesses" that include database marketing, career education and trade shows.
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The company was founded in 1905 as Norfolk Newspapers, a holding company for the newspaper properties of Samuel L. Slover. They included papers which would eventually become today's Virginian-Pilot. Frank Batten took over the company in 1954, and changed its name to Landmark Communications in 1967. It became Landmark Media Enterprises in 2008.
Landmark is controlled by the billionaire Batten family, which founded the Weather Channel and Weather.com. Landmark owns Dominion Enterprises that runs approximately 100 internet-related companies spanning a variety of subjects, including real estate, employment, vehicles, parenting, travel, businesses for sale and apartments.
Landmark owns four major daily newspapers:
Through its Landmark Community Newspapers subsidiary, it owns five community daily newspapers:
It also owns over 120 community and special-interest newspapers in sixteen states. This includes seven publications that cover college sports at Florida State University, University of Florida, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Nebraska, University of Kentucky, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Landmark owns two broadcast outlets, both CBS affiliates:
Until 2008, Landmark was part-owner (with Pelmorex) of Canadian weather channels The Weather Network and MétéoMédia. A second cable outlet, The Travel Channel was owned by the company from 1992 to 1996, when it was sold to Paxson Communications, who subsequently sold it to Discovery Communications, who subsequently sold it to Cox Communications.
Landmark also owns Continental Broadband, one of the leading providers of data center (colocation) and managed data network services in the United States. Its three business units include DataPoint, Expedient and nFrame.
In 2005, Landmark acquired Franchiseopportunities.com, and in 2006, BusinessBroker.net and FranchiseAdvantage.com.
It owns four career training schools that focus on health-related career education:
Both Glendale Career College and Nevada Career Institute have been sold off to a career training school based in southern California.
Landmark's predecessor, Norfolk Newspapers, first entered broadcasting in 1930, when it bought Virginia's oldest radio station, WTAR. It later added Virginia's second television station (and Hampton Roads' first), WTAR-TV (now WTKR) and an FM station (now WVKL). It acquired WFMY-TV in Greensboro as part of its purchase of the Greensboro papers in 1965. However, FCC crossownership rules forced Landmark to sell off WFMY in 1976 and WTAR-TV in 1981. Under the rule, Landmark could not own both a newspaper and a television station in those markets. Landmark also used to own a minority share of the Washingtonian Magazine, until its rights were traded to Eleanor Merrill, widow of publisher Philip Merrill, in a trade for full ownership of the Annapolis Capital newspaper.[1]
In December, 2001, Landmark announced the closing of its wholly owned subsidiary, Church Impressions, LLC, based in Greenville, North Carolina, a publisher of church directories, portraits, and other print and web media products.
Landmark owned the hobby publisher Antique Trader Publications until its sale to Krause Publications in 1999.[2]
Landmark owned Chicago magazine until it was sold to Primedia in 1995. In addition, Landmark was a former owner of KNTV in San Jose, California (now an NBC owned-and-operated station, serving the San Francisco Bay Area media market).
During Landmark's twelve-year ownership of the station (which lasted from 1978 to 1990), KNTV (affiliated with ABC and serving the Monterey / Salinas media market at the time) was its only station that was not an affiliate of the CBS network. Landmark also briefly owned WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, but was forced to sell it immediately due to FCC Restrictions.
On September 19, 2007, it was announced that Continental Broadband (CB), a Landmark Communications (Landmark Media Enterprises) company, sold its South Florida business unit, WebUnited, to Host.net, the leading provider of data center (colocation) and managed network services in Florida.[3]
On May 15, 2009, it was announced that CB sold its Chicago business unit, ANET, to Cogent Communications, a global Internet service provider. On January 23, 2010, it was announced that CB sold its Richmond Business Unit, NET Telcos, to Cavalier Telephone, a full-service provider of telecommunications solutions.
On January 3, 2008, it was reported that the entire Landmark Communications company may be for sale.[4]
Landmark's best-known media outlet was The Weather Channel based in Atlanta, Georgia. In early 2008 Landmark Communications announced it was exploring the option to sell all its holdings. Two separate investment banks, JPMorgan Chase and Lehman Brothers, were hired to help with the sale of The Weather Channel and the newspapers.
In July 2008, the company announced the $3.5 Billion sale of The Weather Channel properties, including its share of The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, to NBC Universal, and the private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. Landmark and NBC Universal completed the sale on September 12, 2008.[5] Additionally, on July 14, it was announced that WTVF in Nashville, Tennessee would be sold to Bonten Media Group.[6]
In October 2008, the company announced that it was suspending the sale of most of its properties, citing the ongoing credit crisis, with the exception of The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. [7]
In addition to The Weather Channel, Landmark sold the following weather properties:
In June 2010, Landmark eliminated its $448 million pension fund, withdrawing pensions for both its retirees and its 5,000 current employees.
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