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New York Times Buys About.com for $410 Million 146

Posted by Zonk from the expensive-searching dept.
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.
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New York Times Buys About.com for $410 Million More

New York Times Buys About.com for $410 Million

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  • Oooooh .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:21PM (#11715394)
    NOw we'll need a free registration to read the junk on about.com??? No thanks!

  • About.com?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:22PM (#11715404) Journal
    Wow. I bet they're partying like it's 1999! /fp
    • Sure, but about.com for $690 million in 2000, sell for $410 million in 2005. Yep, great reason to party. Have to admit it beats the fire out of many other possible tech purchases in 2000 though.
      • Sure, but about.com for $690 million in 2000, sell for $410 million in 2005.

        Well, most people who had $690 million in 2000 have about $410 million today, so doesn't that mean it's square?

        0.76 to the Euro huh? [xe.com] It's gonna be zany mayhem if/when the US Dollar is no longer the standard of currency. Never happen? Too tough? Simpler than inventing the Euro, and, in fact, one of the goals of the Euro.

  • And strangely enough... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:23PM (#11715425)

    The story is posted on Reuters, and does not require a free registration to read it.

  • Return of the internet boom???? Areo chairs, Fooseball, free lunch and all the pop u can drink + 80K a year??
    • Internet boom to me was day trading, selling to a bigger idiot and making thousands. You just couldn't lose (I bailed out before the bust. One stock I sold at $175/share is now $5). I could use that again.

    • Areo chairs

      my ass is planted in one now!

      Fooseball

      they let us play air hockey and throw frisbees

      free lunch

      sometimes, and they're talkin about catering it

      and all the pop u can drink

      subsidized soda here!

      80K a year??

      almost!

  • News and Information (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlueThunderArmy ( 751258 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:24PM (#11715441) Homepage
    It sounds like NY Times is looking to make a website something similar to the BBC pages. There you can get a very basic history lesson, timelines and profiles, plus additional content like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

    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.

    • I have to say, if they can make a website like the BBCs, I'll be impressed. I LOVE the BBC website for many aspects of my life.

      But honestly, I don't think NYTimes can pull it off because part of what makes the BBC website so great is how REAL they are about things. They don't skirt around the politics as much as this one most likely will, and they're not afraid of being a little indecent (if any of you have seen the boys/girls body image flash animations, you'll know what I mean, btw, those are hilarious)

    • Umm... Wikipedia, anyone?
  • Bob. I talk about one of the many topics you'll need to register and log in to read.

  • About Time (Score:4, Funny)

    by mmerlin ( 20312 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:26PM (#11715463) Homepage
    If it was a merger, they change their name to "About Time New York". It sounds better than AOL Time Warner

  • About.com changes (Score:5, Funny)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:28PM (#11715487) Journal
    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.

  • In Other News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:29PM (#11715502)
    The Toronto Star buys Aboot.com

  • So how about slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lottameez ( 816335 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:30PM (#11715504)
    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?

  • 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/ [reuters.com]

    • Primedia payed $401 million for it.
      • Bzzzt. Wrong. $690 mil.
        • If you're going to try to correct someone, how about posting a link and doing it courteously instead of coming off like a smug prick.

          According to cbsmarketwatch.com:

          "The purchase price of About represents a multiple of more than 10 times its revenue, and more than 30 times its cash flow, in 2004. It's also slightly more than the $401 million that Primedia itself paid when it acquired the company back in March 2001. "

          http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid= % 7B CD97F4BD%2DCDE3%2D458B%2DA601%2D3131D
          • Come on now. Why resort to name calling? You don't even know me.

            link to story from 2000 [internetnews.com]

            Offline magazine publisher Primedia said it will buy About, Inc. in a $690 million all-stock deal, forming what the companies say will be one of the largest on- and offline media companies and touting its combined opportunities for marketers.

            Primedia publishes more than 220 offline consumer and business magazines -- ranging from teen, parenting, and enthusiast publications to agricultural, industrial and technica

            • I didn't say you WERE one, just that the comment made you come off like one.

              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
              • The original deal was agreed on for 690 - I was in the company at the time. This is likely why my initial response was so glib.

                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.

          • Here's another link to the correct price [foliomag.com] for you.
    • Just think how priceless Wikipedia is compared to that crappy about.com.

  • Hopefully a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Momoru ( 837801 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:31PM (#11715524) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • Digital vs. Paper (Score:2, Insightful)

    by boyfaceddog ( 788041 )
    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.
    • 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.
    • 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.

      The New York Times has been in other things besides its base operation for decades. It already has a medium-sized group of broadcasting (TV and radio) stations, and I think it had some investments in cable or TV production houses at one time.

      Expanding its internet presence would seem to be the

  • at first i thought it was a coincidence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:38PM (#11715611) Journal
    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.

  • Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:39PM (#11715622)
    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.
    • To clarify, the New York Times can't even run their own website so why are they trying to run another one? They make 24 cents per user per month according to the january issue of business week (as seen on joi.ito.com), but considering the huge asset they have they could be making much more than this.

      They are a newspaper, not a web business. They already have one website, so why don't they learn how to optimize their profits with that before buying something else. Basically I think this is going to turn ou

    • Geniuses (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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. ;)

  • Rearranging the deck chairs? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:40PM (#11715632) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • All the news that's fit to purchase. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dylan Thomas ( 853299 ) <dylan@freespirits.org> on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:42PM (#11715651) Homepage Journal

    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?

    • Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
    • What people need to realize about print ads is that a media planners job is to make sure placement is relevant. So while there are OBVIOUSLY some clear cut cases of advertorials, you shouldn't get so upset about relevant ads placed next to stories unless it seems the story was blatantly written for the sole purpose of increasing the value of the ad.

      Think of it like Google's sponsored links.

      However, as someone in advertising/marketing, I'd also like to point out that many times we will try to work with a

    • A producer told me, "Donald Trump is news. ..."

      I didn't hear anything about Donald Trump aside from a random bankruptcy and his distant plans about building here until The Apprentice came out. But since that program came out, he appears to be everywhere.

      The distinction, of course, is whether Dateline is promoting a product (he is in this case a product) or reacting to a product that's already been promoted. But Dateline is a "news magazine show"--determining what exactly this is will be an exercise lef

    • The line. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TapeCutter ( 624760 )
      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
  • 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!

  • This move makes sense... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by William_Lee ( 834197 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:48PM (#11715731)
    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.
  • 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?
    • I have never "used" it, but I do know people who have had no other choice. My partner had the CWS spyware app take control of her computer last year. CWS made it impossible to view any other site except about.com and it was a bitch to remove. Makes me wonder if the NYT has just paid $400 million to buy 22 million zombies. By enforcing the registration crap and attempting to play catch-up with corporate takeovers the NYT has shown everyone they have about as much understanding of the web as Homer Simpson. I'
  • From the Sorry I Couldn't Help It Department:

    Well, it's About Time(s).
  • Money

    Manage your money matters.
    * 6 Steps to Retiring Rich
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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
  • I read it twice before I realized it didn't say

    "New York Times About to Purchase Buy.com for $410 Million"
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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