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New York Times Buys About.com for $410 Million
IAmTheDave writes "Reuters has the story that the New York Times Co. is set to purchase About.com for $410M from Primedia, Inc. The high purchase price is due to increased ad revenue, up 30% from last year." From the article: "Phillips pointed out that Internet companies have started trading again at significantly higher multiples, and said The Times Co. would be able to use ad revenue from About.com to make up for the flagging classified ad sales that have plagued the industry." Commentary also available at The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and CNN Money.
*yawn*
NOw we'll need a free registration to read the junk on about.com??? No thanks!
Wow. I bet they're partying like it's 1999! /fp
The story is posted on Reuters, and does not require a free registration to read it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Return of the internet boom???? Areo chairs, Fooseball, free lunch and all the pop u can drink + 80K a year??
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Really, I would prefer to keep all of these things seperate, but it can be useful and there's certainly some appeal for the publisher to gain new audiences.
Bob. I talk about one of the many topics you'll need to register and log in to read.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
If it was a merger, they change their name to "About Time New York". It sounds better than AOL Time Warner
smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to
Before Buyout:
Seals: An arctic mammal predominantly inhabiting lands covered in show and ice
After Buyout:
Seals: An endangered arctic mammal, frequenly accosted by the ever accelerating expansion of evil humans. Seals inhabit the endangered arctic ecosystems that are becoming more and more rare due to President Bush's oil cronies and their power and influence over corporate America. It should be noted that, while seals have been killed be the millions in the past, Republicans often like to go on Seal clubbing expeditions just to see small, defenseless, helpless animals suffer.
The Toronto Star buys Aboot.com
How much you think they can get for slashdot? $400 million? Or is a quarter, used movie stub, and some pocket lint closer to the mark?
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
How much did Primedia pay for about.com? Wasn't it around $200 million more than they're selling it for?
BTW, here's part of the story on Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topN ews&storyID=7676834&pageNumber=1/
As long as it doesn't require free registration this could be good. About.com has alot of great content, on topics like cooking, pets, and cities (but not cooking pets in the city). But alot of it is outdated and flooded by popup ads. If NYT can improve the content then I say this is good news.
I guess they just do not get it. With the portability of News Items and Informational websites, this is just a bunch of $$$ moving hands, and NYT ruining a Resource in the hopes of trying to buy legitamacy, and a readily recognized Net Presence like about.com. Maybe they are just jealous of the CraigsList sale and want to feel like a player?
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
I know the NYT is into everything, but as a writer, it bothers me that one of the nations premiere papers are moving significantly away from their base operation. Printing news is not simply disseminating facts.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Cowboy Neal as a bargaining chip
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
that i have used About.com more in the last year than all prior time added togehter. but then I realized that happens because about.com has increased the number of well placed google hits when I wanted to look up something. I think NYT better do their homework. I for one hate what an ad-fest about.com is and how random the value of their info is. Wikipedia, here I come. Were it not for their pushing themselves in my face via google, I would never have seen any of these ads that seem to have piqued NYT's interest.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I want to go on record saying this is going to be a horrible move for the Times. Please mod this comment up so that five years from now if anyone sees this comment then I look like a genius for predicting the future.
Competing with Wikipedia + the blogsphere, must the Grey Lady stoop to conquer? Or just find itself the first titanic newspaper to crash against a web iceberg?
--
make install -not war
Now, let me start with the disclaimer: there's nothing wrong with it. I'm a firm believer in good, old-fashioned capitalism and what any person or corporation wishes to risk his hard-earned capital on is entirely his decision. Al the best and I hope they make a bundle.
Having said that, is there still a line between news and marketing?
I remember, during the eighties, when a whole bunch of so-called "news magazine" programs, from Entertainment Tonight to First Edition and other similar shows came under fire because while pretending to be news programs, they were largely just marketing venues for the networks. However, the public adapted, and most people know how to distinguish between real news and slick-and-glossy "infotainment" (another word that came out of the eighties).
Nonetheless, going all the way back to Dateline NBC's exploding trucks (and I've spoken extensively to one of the producers about this issue, so let me also disclaim that no one who worked on that story still works for the show), I wonder if news and sales haven't become, well, the same process.
Sure, the bottom line is the bottom line. Newspapers exist to sell newspapers. That they report news is merely the product; the goal is to show a profit. If reporting news ceases to be a profitable product, newspapers will begin to... sell vacations on the Internet, perhaps?
My same favorite, Dateline NBC, ran a "two hour special" last year on Donald Trump. That special happened to coincide with his program The Apprentice. Were they reporting news, or hyping a television show? A producer told me, "Donald Trump is news. That he's affiliating himself with a television program is newsworthy. And interdepartamental hype is just part of the business."
So, what's the synergy? NYT runs a story on disaster recovery efforts in Asia. A sidebar on how some lovely small-town tourist attraction has already got back on its feet, and is open for visitors. Find out more at about.com, where several tourist agency links are ready to take your order. This, I suppose, is less tacky than the NYT simply running the agency ads alongside the article.
Where exactly is that line between news and marketing?
What he wants is more important that what I want. What he wants is also more important that what you want.
It's Americans who say about wrong. It's about, not Abaaawt.
I was only short... what... about 409.999.900 dollars. :/
I'd hate to be a NY Times fact checker assigned to verify the info in all those About.com explanations and tutorials... I mean, job security is all well and good but a verification project of that magnitude will take years!
Did they overpay? Yeah, probably in the short term, but let's look at the situation...
While the deal was certainly rich by price to cashflow and cash to revenue metrics, there are a limited number of these internet spaces for sale. CBSmarketwatch.com just went for over $500 million as a comparison.
The NY Times currently has a market cap of around $5.4 billion. They expect this deal to be accretive to earnings two years out. It doesn't represent an enormous purchase, just a pricey one by many measures.
The ad market for printed newspapers has been flat. Growth is expected to be anemic this year.
Newspaper circulations in general are down.
They picked up approximately 22 million unique eyeballs a month to target ads to via this deal, and a high traffic established internet site. The internet advertising market is growing.
Digitial media / advertising is a growth industry compared to the lackluster printed newspaper market that is unlikely to get better any time soon.
Traditional media outlets like the NYT need to continue to build internet presences to avoid obsolesence.
The deal while a bit expensive makes a whole lot of sense to stay competitive as media evolves and changes.
Does it have anything on how to spell "a lot" properly?
What's wrong with the men out there?
It's also preserving them. I went to check yesterday's price for SCOX online today... nope that stock no longer exists... it's SCOXE... which has no history as it didn't exist yesterday. I've tried to check what certain government acts said before the current provincial government ammended them... nope... the old acts have been ammended, so they're gone from the provincial government's website.
In one instance, About.com allowed the complete piracy of a linux entertainment forum and claimed it as About.com intellectual property. I'm talking about Happypenguin.org. It was about a 8 moths ago (IIRC) when Happypenguin.org was set a host of a complete websuck by a About.com "editor"; duplicating the entire Happypenguin.org gamelist and comment forum into the Linux section on About.com. I think the "editor" caught is "Jurgen Haas" or some such. Hearing Bob Zambinski rant was worthy to mimic, under GPL of'course, to any similar situations. How would you like it if Slashdot initiated a webf^Hsuck on a great little website, kicking the bandwidth bill rigth in their face, and then claim all the "IP" as their own? That's what Jurgen Hass at About.com had done. And to this day, Slashdot has been doing the same and worse: Slashbombing little websites, unrepentantly! To quote the street-preacher in the crap movie JOHNY GNUMONIC, "Halt sinners!" (*SMACK*)
without prejudice
if this is one of those corporate transactions where they SAY company A buys company B, but in reality company B is buying company A and assuming their name... kinda like the Sears "buyout" of K-mart that is really a K-Mart takeover of Sears..
who has never used, nor heard of anyone I know using about.com?
From the Sorry I Couldn't Help It Department:
Well, it's About Time(s).
this is old news. CNBC had this story running at 5:30am PST today when I got to work.
this will be interesting to watch as a high school student, because about.com owns chanal 1 news a news chanal that brodcast in schools around america. but there is a lot of debate around chanal 1 because most of it is just advertising and some parents are questioning if chanal one does more harm than it does good. and what i would like to see is if the NYT(a respected news company) will do any thing to make chanal one better at news and have less ads
Money
Manage your money matters.
* 6 Steps to Retiring Rich
* Get Next Year's Tax Return Now
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i saw this on the net a while ago and i dont remember if this was on slashdot...but its scary .. its happening!
http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html
Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
Oh come on. About isn't all that bad. I remember one particular topic I needed some information on and could not find it clearly presented in any site other than About. In fact, almost all the other sites only discussed the topic in a very indirect and non-specific manner, so that I was left far more confused than when I first clicked on the links. About finally gave me some firm answers about the right and wrong ways to approach my dilemna and taught me some priceless lessons.
I'm referring to the content I found on fashion.about.com. I still don't understand why, and I still refuse to comply, but at least I know you're not supposed to wear white socks with black shoes and I have a vague idea how to tie a tie.
I misread you.
/sheepishly shuffles his feet
no one uses about.com. It's worth about 100 bucks at best. What idiots. Truly there is one born every minute.
Now we'll need a free registration to read other people's junk on about.com. :o/
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
New York Times Buys About.com for About $400 Million
link to story from 2000
It's about time!
I didn't say you WERE one, just that the comment made you come off like one.
2 00 5/02/08/generalnypost_2005_02_08_eng-nypost_eng-ny post_033344_4232868471241990790.ew.html?partner=ya hoo&referrer=
Anyways, it would appear our discrepancy is due to the fact that the Primedia deal was a stock swap with no cash involved.
Further research shows that when the deal was ANNOUNCED it was valued at your posted figure of $690 million, but when it was actually consumated it was for around $430 million based on stock price.
From forbes.com:
"When the About.com deal with Primedia was first unveiled, it was said to be a $690 million stock price. But the Internet bubble was already deflating, and by the time the stock swap deal actually closed, the real transaction price was about $430 million. "
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/general/
So, I guess it's a matter of choose your poison. Can I have a hug?
I want perfume, and I don't know why! Macys, here I come!
There's a moose aboot the hoose.
I read it twice before I realized it didn't say
"New York Times About to Purchase Buy.com for $410 Million"
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
I'll give you an o but not an x, since I'm pretty sure the x is a kiss and the o is a hug ;-)
Peace.
Michael Jackson wears white socks with black shoes.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I want to go on record saying this is going to be a great move for the Times. Please mod this comment up so that five years from now if anyone sees this comment then I look like a genius for predicting the future. ;)
It is impossible to find "the line". To me it looks like a spectrum with Fox at the marketing/political-spruking end and the BBC at the news/information end. Here in Australia (sorry about Rupert Murdoch) we have 3 big free to air commercial stations and two stations in the BBC tradition. I only watch the commercial one's for movies and laughs.
Unfortunately we are like the US, the majority of Australians are not interested in anything beyond the sound-bites and cannot spot an advert unless it comes with bonus steak knives. To them propoganda is something the Nazi's did and does not come out of thier TV set. We get the BBC, FOX, CNN, etc on cable, during the early months of the Iraq war the same sanitised story came from every station except 3, the BBC and the two Australian (BBC type) stations ABC and SBS. When I was watching the 24x7 war news of the time, it was like the BBC was reporting on a different war. A few years have passed now and it turns out that the BBC were doing thier job while most of the others were simply handing out pentagon and whitehouse press releases. The message to Journalist's was clear "Don't question our motives, methods or facts". Michael Moore tried but was ultimately defeated by the "Fat Liberal" sound-bite. ( For the many slashdotters who despise MM, ask yourself, if his facts are inaccurate why is it that he is continually attacked via villification rather than contrary evidence? Note: I said "facts" and "evidence" not conjecture, conclusions, opinion or humour. )
Does BBC/ABC/SBS portray the "unbiased truth"? Maybe not, but they are alot closer to reality than any commercial station I have ever seen. They also seem to remeber what was news last week and have an ability to tie it into current events. Some of the others obviously don't want anyone to remeber what happened last week, thier strategy is to blast away contradictions by shouting louder or changing the subject to JJ's tits. As for what I have seen of the NYT, it is closer to the BBC end of the spectrum but does not understand how to profit from porting news (and it's reputation) to the web.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Instead of just being my geeky self, I have been learning (electric) guitar. The guitar site on about.com has really good articles on learning the guitar. My worry is that when NYC buys about.com, they will start their 'free registration provided you have a pre-paid pass key' format. No matter, they don't own about.com yet, so wget here we come! (Ya know, I could turn this message into a lyric!!!).
BBC also rules because it is not motivated by mere filthy lucre.
...Just as the Wikipedia is supplanting about.com as the reference starting point of choice.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist