WebProNews

When word spread that The Weather Channel and Weather.com might sell for $5 billion, we duly reported the news.  We did not, however, laugh at the number - never mind how many automobiles, houses, or whatever else $5 billion would buy - and now there's additional data about how it may make sense.

Hitwise's Heather Dougherty created a chart showing Weather.com with more than twice the market share of Yahoo Weather, Weather Underground, AccuWeather, and MSN Weather.  So that makes it attractive to anyone wanting to show up Yahoo and Microsoft right from the start.

Dougherty goes on to note, "Beyond just the market share numbers, the website retains a majority of its audience due to the dynamic nature of the content.  In Dec. 2007, 74% of the visitors overall to Weather.com were repeat visitors."

And finally, Weather.com does quite well in search results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live, so it should be able to count on a steady stream of new visitors.

Some of us might rather have a sea of supercars - $5 billion could buy about 25,000 machines (assuming an average price $200,000) - but as a more businesslike purchase, The Weather Channel and Weather.com are looking pretty reasonable.