BuzzFeed Strikes Deal To Buy HuffPost From Verizon Media

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: BuzzFeed is set to acquire HuffPost in a stock deal with Verizon Media, The Wall Street Journal's Benjamin Mullin and Keach Hagey first reported Thursday. Verizon will get a noncontrolling stake in BuzzFeed in return. In addition to the all-stock deal, Verizon is investing cash in BuzzFeed, according to The Journal. As a result of the deal, the two newsrooms will be able to syndicate each other's content and team up for advertising deals. Jonah Peretti, the BuzzFeed founder and CEO and a cofounder of The Huffington Post, will be in charge of the expanded media giant. The two newsrooms will continue to operate as separate entities, the companies said in a press release.

"Verizon Media's strategy has evolved over the past two years to focus on our core strengths -- ads, commerce, content and subscriptions," Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan said in the release. "We've created a powerhouse ecosystem, built on a trusted network, that delivers an end-to-end experience for consumers and advertisers. The partnership with BuzzFeed complements our roadmap while also accelerating our transformation and growth."

Peretti said in the statement: "We're excited about our partnership with Verizon Media, and mutual benefits that will come from syndicating content across each other's properties, collaborating on innovative ad products and the future of commerce, and tapping into the strength and creativity of Verizon Media Immersive. I have vivid memories of growing HuffPost into a major news outlet in its early years, but BuzzFeed is making this acquisition because we believe in the future of HuffPost and the potential it has to continue to define the media landscape for years to come," Peretti said. "With the addition of HuffPost, our media network will have more users, spending significantly more time with our content than any of our peers." Arianna Huffington, the HuffPost founder, tweeted: "So happy to see HuffPost and Buzzfeed coming together 15 years after Jonah Peretti started HuffPost with Kenny Lerer and me. Such exciting news and looking forward to all that's to come!"

Consolidating the garbage

[memory_register]

All the garbage political clickbait, now conveniently in one location.

Re:

[Xenographic]

Wait, when did they buy Slashdot? :)

Re:

[rtb61]

Not that funny, all that garbage investment and debt being dumped in one place, to take out the investor in an investment musical chairs. Those investors who escape those debts and those investors who investment gets buried in that debt. It looks like they are creating an investment poison pill to dump on some less than scrupulous pension funds.

Verizons' core strengths

[hey!]

"... ads, commerce, content and subscriptions ..."

I guess that covers everything -- except network infrastructure.

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I mean, Verizon Media is a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon, designed to produce web content. They shouldn't know anything about network infrastructure, any more than the Gmail team should be experts on infrastructure just because Google Fiber shares the same corporate parent.

Hidden agenda

[dsgrntlxmply]

They are working this through shell companies in Malta and Panama, to avoid a massive payout to the family of the employee tragically consumed by the Article Aggregation Turbine in 2012.

Buying Huffpost is a really bad idea

[bob8766]

Now that Biden has been elected president, what are they even going to talk about? Their viewers are going to drop off into a bottomless pit once the political drama is over. If they are lucky Trump will run again and get elected in 2024, then they might have viewers again.

Re:Buying Huffpost is a really bad idea

[cusco]

If Huffpost were an actual liberal/progressive web site they'd be talking about how to hold his feet to the fire to make him do something that differentiates himself from the non-insane Republicans, but since it's just an echo chamber for the Democratic Party faithful you have a point.

Re:Buying Huffpost is a really bad idea

[RightSaidFred99]

God I'm going to enjoy watching the far left loon faction of the Democrats battle with the sane portion. We really need like 4 parties. The far left loons can break off from the Democrats, the far right nutjobs can break off from the Republicans. Then you'll have far left, moderate left, moderate right, and far right. The far left is even more impotent and tiny than the far right once you remove their outsize influence on the Democrats, so this will help marginalize all the nutcases into little niche parties nobody gives a fuck about.

Re:

[Pascoea]

Three parties would suffice. The loudest 1% on either side, and then the remaining 98% that just want to go about their lives. It's too bad that far too many people vote based on either abortion or guns, completely ignoring everything else about the shit that gets put up front.

Re:

[wyattstorch516]

They are going to continue to talk about Trump. This will be the first time in history that the former president will get more attention than the current president. The media will be like those people who are always reminiscing about high school when they are in their thirties.

Has Huffpost sacked the hateful sexist yet ?

[greytree]

Or is sexist hatred okay as long as you only want to kill men ?

https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lu... [inc.com]

Merger?

[Briareos]

So what name are they going to use from now on?

HuffFeed? BuzzPost?

Both sound like they're on crack...

Trash site buys...

[RightSaidFred99]

So basically, one trash site is buying a left wing blogging site. Whoohoo, big news everybody!

They couldn't even give it away

[wyattstorch516]

They received worthless BuzzFeed stock and they were forced to dump money in the company to keep it afloat.They would have been better off just shutting it down and taking the heat from the SJWs.

In related news...

[Cyrano de Maniac]

In a strikingly parallel development, my city is enlarging the sewer main near the center of town.