CNET Sold to Ziff Davis in Sign of Possible Media Deals to Come
CNET Sold to Ziff Davis in Sign of Possible Media Deals to Come - The New York Times
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CNET Sold to Ziff Davis in Sign of Possible Media Deals to Come
Ziff Davis is acquiring CNET for more than $100 million. Its chief executive thinks more acquisitions are on the horizon.
CNET, an early pioneer of online tech coverage, is changing hands.
Ziff Davis, a digital media giant that owns other technology-focused brands like Mashable, PC Mag and Lifehacker, is buying the company from Red Ventures, Ziff Davis’s chief executive, Vivek Shah, said on Tuesday.
Ziff Davis paid more than $100 million for CNET, according to a person familiar with the matter. Red Ventures declined to comment on the deal.
Mr. Shah said the acquisition of CNET was part of the company’s strategy to acquire digital-media businesses with its roughly $800 million in cash on hand. He predicted more deals across the industry, as tech giants like Google and Meta snatch an increasing portion of digital ad spending and as advances in artificial intelligence threaten to further disrupt the digital-media landscape.
“There’s enough uncertainty, which can convince people to say, ‘I don’t know if I want to stay around to find out what’s going to happen,’ ” Mr. Shah said. “But I have a very clear and optimistic view on content.”
Mr. Shah led a buyout of Ziff Davis, a century-old magazine publisher whose titles chronicled the early tech boom, in 2010. The company was then acquired by J2 Global, which Mr. Shah eventually split into two pieces. One company, Ziff Davis, kept well-known publishing brands like Mashable, and the other kept a fax provider called eFax.
CNET, which attracted 38 million visitors in June according to SimilarWeb, has had several owners since it was founded three decades ago. CBS bought it in 2008 at an eye-popping valuation of $1.8 billion. The digital media company Red Ventures bought it in 2020 for about $500 million.
CNET has faced some turbulence recently. In early 2023, an investigation by Futurism, a news website, found that CNET was publishing articles produced with the aid of generative artificial intelligence, prompting the company to refine some of its publishing guidelines. CNET’s writers and other content creators later unionized, citing A.I. as a critical issue.
Ziff Davis’s stock has slid over the past year as headwinds in the publishing sector have affected the digital ad business. But Mr. Shah said that he believed additional deals like the one for CNET would increase its profits.
Mr. Shah said he decided to acquire CNET partly because it is well-known industry brand, and its sizable audience will give Ziff Davis greater clout with advertisers looking to reach tech consumers. CNET publishes a variety of product reviews and recommendations, and the publisher sometimes earns a commission if readers use its guides to purchase an item.
“Technology and telecom products and services — whether for an individual, their home or business — continue to be complicated,” Mr. Shah said. “There’s lots of choice that requires advice. So I think there’s just real editorial need for it.”
Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact Ben securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or email at benjamin.mullin@nytimes.com. More about Benjamin Mullin
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