Friday, February 18, 2005

NYTimes To Buy About

So it's been announced that the New York Times plans on purchasing About.com from Primedia Inc for $410 million [all cash by the way]. I know About's been on the chopping block for a while now but I'd love to find out more about why the NYT is so interested in scooping them up, especially with the amount of cash they're having to shell out. I know we're in a dot com boom but still, that's no reason to get rid of a small mountain of cash.

Funnier still though is that when About.com founder Scott Kurnit sold it to Primedia in 2001 for approx. $690 million. Now, 4 years later it's getting acquired for only 2/3 the price Primedia paid. Kind of weird since the dot com bubble had already burst in 2001 yet Primedia took a gamble, must not have worked out all that well for them.

Here's a snippet from the MediaPost story.

"The deal could more than double the online reach of the Times Company, which currently draws 13 million monthly viewers to its 40-plus Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com. Around 22 million users a month visit About.com, a consumer information site; the acquisition will also give the Times additional advertising inventory."

via MediaPost

By Jason Dowdell at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

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