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CBS Acquires CNET Networks for $1.8 Billion

Posted by timothy on from the aggregation-to-the-nth-degree dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to an announcement made today by Neil Ashe, CEO of CNET Networks, CBS has acquired CNET Networks. "Today, CNET Networks announced that it has been acquired by US media company CBS, in a deal valued at $1.8bn. The agreement represents an important strategic step for both companies and should be completed by the third quarter of 2008." So guess we'll be seeing The Late Show with Dan Ackerman, Molly Wood in Hollywood and CSISpot." If you'd like to read about it someplace other than CNet, Ian Lamont contributes a link to coverage at The Standard. It seems reasonable to ask how much longer they'll let news.com remain an IT-centric site.

11 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. New name? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

    And the new company is....CnetBS?

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    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:New name? by abolitiontheory · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And the new company is....CnetBS?

      Haha... *tear*. Am I the only one who is actually sad about this? I lose faith in new media outlets when they partner with old media. I know Cnet is big and corporate anyway, but it's like your favorite local supermarket chain being bought out by the big, national one; you know worse service and product quality is on the way, all in the name of (supposedly) lower prices.

      For me, Cnet was the Amazon of review websites. Sure it was big, it was corporate, but it provided solid baseline advice on pricing and advice, along with user reviews and links to other websites or places to buy the product. Compare that baseline with a little in depth search on fan sites and blogs, and you were sure to find the easily accessible deal on the net. Cnet could be trusted, in the same way Amazon could/can be trusted.

      This is another MSNBC monstrosity. No one trusted them from the first, but Cnet is losing respect in my eyes and my chances of going there will dimish as the months of incorperation with CBS increase. This rings like I imagine a major network partnering with Amazon would. I would lose respect for the beauty of a purely "new world" portal of information and services, feeling like it was sold out to old world profit motives and corporate greed.

      Old networks are trying to "stay relevent" but they are only dead anchors on sailing ships of new technology. When has this kind of partnership helped? An example of a good acqusition was Google/YouTube, being that they were both new world technologies with distinct advantages for each other. Old media is just trying to keep their hands in the money pot, and as they become more irrelevent, they start to make grand, flailing gestures like this, much like the record companies and RIAA.

      This smacks of the same way Microsoft "innovates": buying companies which have technologies they can quickly repackage and sell off as their own. CBS brings nothing to this merger. They are acquiring a relevent, new world technology and are going to suck it dry, purely in their best interest. Unless they stay fairly hand-off and simply siphon ad revenue, Cnet will go down the drain and become another "made over" new world technology no one (informed) cares about.

      Anyone have suggestions for other broad-base review websites I can start visiting?

      Technorant, out.

  2. news.com domain valuation ... by xmas2003 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if there was internal discussions in the buyout about how much the domain news.com was worth as I can certainly see that being attractive to CBS.

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    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
    1. Re:news.com domain valuation ... by techstar25 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The other title for this article could have been "CBS buys domain name 'news.com' for $1.8 billion, also gets some website thrown in for good measure".

  3. Title should have been by analog_line · · Score: 4, Informative

    "news.com" domain name sold for 1.8 billion, because that's what it really boils down to. Sure, they get a portfolio of websites that get a lot of eyes and I would imagine a fair amount of dollars, but everyone knows how fickle that can be in today's world. CBS's news divsion is at the bottom of the pack of major US news networks despite the Katie Couric hire, which was supposed to get them back on track. This sounds like a similar ploy, the bulk of C-Net being sweetener to the "screw the news division, it's not a profit center" investors.

  4. Amazing. by Steauengeglase · · Score: 4, Funny

    I didn't realize that CNET had $1.8 Billion in office furniture. That is what they are buying it for, right?

  5. CBS's getting away from the nursing home crowd? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny
    Maybe CBS is trying to get hip with the youngsters. This is a network that has been know for the last 20 years as the ancient relic network. They've actually had several "60 Minutes" hosts die in the middle of news segments recently without anyone even noticing. Poor Andy Rooney has been dead for several years, and they still cut to his rotting corpse at the end of each show.

    They really NEED some modernization over there. Granted they will have to explain the concept of the "internet" to many of their staffers, but hey if they can learn to use a telegraph, they can learn the internet too. And maybe someone on a CNET forum can tell them about Andy.

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    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. other Second Rate Site Acquired By Big Media by illectro · · Score: 5, Informative

    CNet has been struggling recently and that valuation seems too high, but traditional media have a bad habit of paying too much for aqcuisitions of tech companies.... Comcast Acquires Plaxo, even though nobody can figure out how to make money AOL Acquires Bebo (popular, but not enough to justify almost a billion dollars) CBS (again!) Acquires last.fm (popular among bloggers but eclipsed by other sites in the real world) the only big media deal I can think of in recent years that was a good bet was Newscorp's undervalued' acquisition of myspace.

  7. Seriously by whisper_jeff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, I remember playing Shadowrun and Cyberpunk as a kid (ok, not a kid, but a long time ago...) and thinking the idea of megacorps running the world was nice for a fictional view of the future.

    Apparently it wasn't so fictional with all these multi-billion dollar mergers of mega-media corporations, manipulation of political agendas by corporate interests, and whatnot.

    Where do I sign up for my cybernetic implants because I know how this story goes and I want to have a fighting edge when things go bleak...

  8. That's not all they own... by AutopsyReport · · Score: 4, Informative

    I really wasn't aware how many domains CNET has. Did a bit of research and they own search.com, mp3.com, tv.com, radio.com, chat.com, etc. Those are some extremely valuable domains.

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    For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

  9. CBS News needed technical assistance by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The next time they create "fake but accurate" documents, they will be far more plausible!

              Brett