One by one, they pick up the baton and run with it.
News Corp. Chairman and Rupert Murdoch had mentioned how he had become enamored with the Web because with very little investment, he got abnormally positive returns. So off he went.
After remaining largely quiet for a decade, News Corp. got serious about the Web in 2005 and spent nearly $2B buying up Intermix (parent of MySpace), IGN Entertainment (that’s how they inherited me for a few months), Scout Inc., and then capped off 2007 with purchases of Strategic Data Corp., Photobucket, Flektor.
But, by 2007 the buying spree was over. His Chief Buying Officer Ross Levinsohn left for greener pastures, launching his own investment fund with former AOL Chief Jon Miller, merging with ComVentures.
Then last year, CBS picked up the mantle of Chief Acquisitor by buying Last.fm and Wallstrip. While relatively small, you could see there was more in store, especially with former Allen & Co. Quincy Smith being brought in as CEO of CBSI, reporting directly to CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, and Yahoo!’s former corporate development executive Michael Marquez rounding up the team.
We then commented: is CBS the new News Corp. in that regard?
Perhaps. Today they made it official: CBS spends $1.8B to buy CNET. There will be those who say this was a lot of money for an old Web company, but CNET is a proven business with $400M in annual revenues and over 100M global users, propelling CBS to become a Top 10 Media Property in the US.
Of course, we always liked this idea, even prompting CBS to do so just back on April 14th.
The point is: TV-based media companies need to buy and buy big time, otherwise the future looks awfully like print’s past: downwards and smaller.
Subscribe: