NBC Universal and its two partners, private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, have reached a deal with Landmark Communications Inc. to buy The Weather Channel for a rumored price of about $3.5 billion, according to several business news outlets. Landmark previously hoped for as much as $5 billion when it put up for sale the channel, earlier this year.

NBC Universal will run The Weather Channel as a separate unit. The Weather Channel also features additional assets such as weather services for newspapers and radio stations and the popular website Weather.com. It is the third most distributed channel in the United States, with 97 percent of cable subscribers receiving it.

Time Warner Inc. dropped out of the bid earlier this year, leaving NBC the only bidder. NBC Universal operates a weather service called NBC Weather Plus, which can be seen on digital cable services operated by NBC stations.

The Weather Channel’s web site, Weather.com, may well be the actual target of the acquisition. The website is one of the top traffic sites in the U.S. and boasts almost 40 million unique visitors each month. The deal also includes Weather Services International (WSI), which operates the Web site Intellicast.com and develops television weather graphics and forecasts for private business.

The Weather Channel was founded upon the initiative of former WLS-TV Chicago chief meteorologist and Good Morning America forecaster John Coleman in 1982. It currently operates on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and from local National Weather Service offices, but makes its own forecasts in a centralized Atlanta facility.

The channel was hit by a major scandal this year, after it was revealed that former on-camera meteorologist Bob Stokes sexually harassed former anchor Hillary Andrews through crude thinly veiled statements which included invitations to oral sex. She won a lawsuit in May and Stokes was ordered to pay an undisclosed settlement.