The two companies completed the sale Sunday night and announced the deal just after midnight ET today, according to this New York Times story. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.
The Huffington Post launched in 2005 with a $1 million investment, the NYT says, and has grown into one of the nation's most heavily visited news websites. It now draws about 25 million visitors a month.
New media consultant Jeff Jarvis says co-founder Arianna Huffington, 60, has long thirsted after local content, and AOL's 700-plus Patch network "gives her the scale to execute her imperialist strategy." Jarvis also wonders why an Old Media company didn't buy her site first. (Hello, Gannett's board of directors?)
Related: Arianna Huffington on the deal
Earlier: AOL CEO's bold promise to be No. 1 in local news
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New media consultant Jeff Jarvis says co-founder Arianna Huffington, 60, has long thirsted after local content, and AOL's 700-plus Patch network "gives her the scale to execute her imperialist strategy." Jarvis also wonders why an Old Media company didn't buy her site first. (Hello, Gannett's board of directors?)
Related: Arianna Huffington on the deal
Earlier: AOL CEO's bold promise to be No. 1 in local news
Gannett would be hard pressed to sell all of its newspapers for this. Says something.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the recent run-up in its stock, Gannett now has a market value of nearly $4 billion.
ReplyDeleteGannett needs to reinvent its newspapers as hyperlocal sites that leverage the power of blogging in the manner that HuffPo does. Old model of news: The few to the many. New model: Many to many. Thus, the few (the "professional" journalists) become even fewer via the ongoing downsizing of newsrooms.
ReplyDelete8:29- Yeah you pretty much summed it up. It's clear now what type of journalism is profitable for online content- Bloggers working for free, content farm freelancers working for pennies, and low-paid sweat shop reporters writing dozens of low-content stories a day.
ReplyDeleteNoted: Craig Dubow became CEO of Gannett, and Arianna Huffington co-founded Huffington Post in the same year: 2005. He is 56. She is 60.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the kind of bold thing Gannett and USA Today should be doing. Instead we cower behind cost-cutting that lessens our ability to provide the very content AOL just paid $315 billion for.
ReplyDeleteHuffington relies on writers paid less than slave wages.
ReplyDeleteYikes! Whatever the merits of the HuffPo deal for AOL, the market is loving it RE GCI stock. At 11:15 a.m. Central GCI is screaming higher, closing in on $19. The 52-week high is not far from that. I've seen no published news to account for the price spike. Likely reason: HuffPo buyout. The HuffPo connection? Investors see GCI as a likely take-out candidate, too. I've been pounding the table here for a GCI stock valuation at $25-ish. Now do you believe me? Hate the company if you must. But what's wrong with making money?
ReplyDeleteBut Gannett has High School Sports!!!
ReplyDelete:::crickets:::
To add to 8:29, conservative turned limo liberal rakes it in by paying nothing(and running photo galleries of semi-naked women) and throws a Inauguration Eve election night party at the financially failing monument to Big Al:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newseum.org/news/2009/01/newseum-the-place-to-be-for-inauguration.html
Q: What does Gannett have that Huffington Post doesn't have? A: Positive cash flow! Net profit! Salaries for all employees! A 401(k) plan for most employees! Medical and dental benefits for f-t employees! An ethics statement that every journalist has to sign each year!
ReplyDeleteGannett bought Ripple6...good job Jack!
ReplyDelete