The sale of the Weather Channel is drawing closer, with the bidders down to two media giants.

Time Warner, parent of Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, and NBC Universal are the leading contenders, according to sources close to the deal. Landmark Communications put the Atlanta-based cable network up for sale last year.

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Weather Channel anchor Jim Cantore works in front of the 60-by-80 foot high-definition screen.

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Final bids were due two weeks ago. It is unclear when Landmark will announce the buyer.

"They are probably trying to face the two sides off to get them to raise their last bids. Otherwise you wouldn't have to wait a week and a half," said Alan Gould, an analyst with New York investment bank Natixis Bleichroeder. "They are going back to each side and saying, 'You could do a little better.' "

Officials from Norfolk, Va.-based Landmark as well as Time Warner would not give details. NBC Universal did not respond to e-mails or phone calls.

Some analysts are predicting the price tag will be between $3 billion and $4 billion. It's unclear whether Time Warner has an advantage because the Weather Channel is in Turner's backyard.

"If you're talking about spending $3.5 billion to $4 billion for an entity, it really shouldn't matter where the headquarters is," Gould said. "The fact that they are both headquartered in Atlanta is not a big deal at all, as evidenced by NBC probably being the leading bidder, and they are based in New York."

Besides Turner, Time Warner is the parent of America Online, HBO and Warner Bros. Entertainment. The company recently decided to sell off its cable operations, which may place it in a better financial position to buy something else, Gould and other analysts say.

NBC is 80 percent owned by General Electric. Wall Street has been putting increased pressure on executives to sell off the television unit after GE missed first-quarter earnings expectations. NBC has its own weather network, Weather Plus, and other cable news operations, MSNBC and CNBC.

"It makes a lot of sense for NBC," said Alan Breznick, an analyst at Heavy Reading, a technology and media research firm in the Washington area. "NBC already had a weather operation. It goes together with their information news channels."

Initial reports said Landmark wanted $5 billion for the Weather Channel, which Monday began broadcasting in high definition. A key part of the company is its oft-visited Web site, weather.com.

Analysts said the original $5 billion figure probably was planted by investors eager to get outside companies interested in doing a deal.

"That's common," said Derek Baine, an analyst with New York-based media research firm SNL Kagan. "If you look at Oxygen, they were talking about $3 billion, and it went for less than $1 billion."

Some analysts still think $3 billion to $4 billion may be too high for a network with 96 million viewers.

"It's easy to say $20-a-head for a mature, fully distributed cable network, so that makes the cable side about $2 billion," Gould said. "I don't know what's behind the dot-com portion of it."

Pricing the deal between $3 billion and $4 billion means a buyer would pay about $30 to $40 per viewer. NBC paid about $12 per viewer when it bought Oxygen last year.