Business Verizon seeks buyer for HuffPost website - Telecoms group raises sale with potential acquirers as part of digital media retreat

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Verizon is sounding out potential buyers for the HuffPost website, in the latest phase of the US telecoms group’s retreat from the digital media business.

In recent weeks Verizon has raised a HuffPost sale with potential acquirers, according to two people familiar with the discussions. No formal sale process has been launched and talks remain at an early stage. A company spokesperson declined to comment.

The attempt to sell the progressive news site is a sign of how Verizon is continuing to slim down the family of dotcom businesses it amassed with the costly acquisition of Yahoo and AOL, assets it wrote down by almost $5bn earlier this year. Last month Verizon sold Tumblr for a reported “nominal” amount, after buying the social network for $1.1bn in 2013.


Verizon formed its media division from the merger of AOL, which Verizon bought for $4.4bn in 2015, and Yahoo, which it paid $4.5bn in 2017. At the time Tim Armstrong, the former AOL chief executive who pioneered the digital strategy, said the tie-up would create “the best company for consumer media”.

Since the time of the deal, digital media groups once hailed as the future of the news business have struggled to meet the sky-high expectations for the sector, especially as online advertising revenues have been swallowed up by Google and Facebook.

Some companies such as Rookie have closed while newsrooms at HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Vice and Vox have faced job cuts. Consolidation has swept the sector as financially-strapped digital media groups seek scale. In just the past month Vice Media acquired Refinery29, the women-focused millennial website, while Group Nine bought PopSugar and Vox acquired New York Media, owner of the namesake magazine.

The Huffington Post, a liberal news site founded in 2005 by a group of publishers including Arianna Huffington, was bought by AOL for $315m in 2011. It operates across more than a dozen countries through licensing agreements.

In January Verizon announced that it would reduce the staff numbers at its digital media division by around 7 per cent, cutting about 800 jobs, including some at HuffPost. The news website also closed its German arm, HuffPost Deutschland, in March.
 
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A smart person would be attentive enough to know that HuffPost is a moneypit that can't draw revenue to save its own life, as seen in this situation in particular.
I'm betting some retarded upstarts looking to prove a point will go for it. Either that or Vice will scoop it up when the price goes down because they, too, are retarded.
 
The attempt to sell the progressive news site is a sign of how Verizon is continuing to slim down the family of dotcom businesses it amassed with the costly acquisition of Yahoo and AOL, assets it wrote down by almost $5bn earlier this year. Last month Verizon sold Tumblr for a reported “nominal” amount, after buying the social network for $1.1bn in 2013.
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Wait....so AOL still exists?
 
It's interesting just how badly liberal rags are doing during the Trump presidency. "Let's make news websites targeted at people who don't read" doesn't seem like a sound business plan to me.
 
WhoBusTank69 said:
A smart person would be attentive enough to know that HuffPost is a moneypit that can't draw revenue to save its own life, as seen in this situation in particular.
I'm betting some exceptional upstarts looking to prove a point will go for it. Either that or Vice will scoop it up when the price goes down because they, too, are exceptional.
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It'll sell, but it won't last. There's always going to be suckers who believe that any website with traffic is a surefire investment because of the hysteric effect the dotcom boom had on business culture, and within years (sometimes even a few quarters) they realise what they've done and dump it: Univision and Gawker Media is hyper-relevant proof of this. Digital media is basically just a rat trap for dumber investors who think anything remotely connected to technology is worth millions by default. Verizon, mind you, are the same morons who bought Tumblr so you can see this in action right now.
 
NOT Sword Fighter Super said:
Wait....so AOL still exists?
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AOL was spun off from Time Warner in 2009 (in less than a decade going from company namesake to bottom-feeder division), and bought Huffington Post two years later. Later, they bought the bulk of Yahoo! and rebranded the division as "Oath".

Despite trying to rebrand the division as "Verizon Media", Verizon has been cleaning house and slowly dismantling Oath, and their sale of Huffing & Puffing is just another sign of it.
 
Verizon must have lost a lot of money selling companies at a loss, particularly with news websites. How long before a huge online news collapse occurs? Gawker has fallen; Salon's owner is trading for pennies in the stock market.
 
It's going to get bought by some random entity who doesn't know how website debt works, just like Mic.com and a few others I can't remember the names to.
 
dreamworks face said:
It's interesting just how badly liberal rags are doing during the Trump presidency. "Let's make news websites targeted at people who don't read" doesn't seem like a sound business plan to me.
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Whatever happened to the vaunted 'Trump Bump' that was supposed to rain down unlimited cash? I thought for sure Huffpost of all places would do fine in this political climate. I assumed they were one of the bigger lefty outlets. 10 years ago they were supposedly more popular that NYTimes.

Possible insight, according to similarweb.com:
huffpost kill yourself.jpg

It looks like many people are choosing to kill themselves rather than read Huffpost. That might explain declining readership.

huffpost traffic datda.jpg

Note: searching for 'highline huffpost' only leads to pain. They've managed to bring back the <marquee> HTML tag somehow, and are using it for climate scaremongering.
 
Go woke, go broke Season 1 Episode 4578.

The decline in "readership" which has plagued the classic print media since decades continues with the web media. Who'd have thought?
To be fucking frank all these worthless e-media outlets like the Huffington Post can go and neck themselves, they had never any value to begin with.
And for all of those re,tarded idiots award wining journalists, a subtle hint for future job prospects:
e5e8b881f162cec2b32fcbc12a6097f90f8888990797e84c0bb64828788af6a5.jpg
 
Thank Fuck For Evil Otto said:
Whatever happened to the vaunted 'Trump Bump' that was supposed to rain down unlimited cash? I thought for sure Huffpost of all places would do fine in this political climate. I assumed they were one of the bigger lefty outlets. 10 years ago they were supposedly more popular that NYTimes.

Possible insight, according to similarweb.com:
View attachment 977954

It looks like many people are choosing to kill themselves rather than read Huffpost. That might explain declining readership.

View attachment 977955

Note: searching for 'highline huffpost' only leads to pain. They've managed to bring back the <marquee> HTML tag somehow, and are using it for climate scaremongering.
Click to expand...

I wonder if there's just so many platforms churning out overlapping Trump-related garbage that tiers of quality have formed inside of it and people in need of their anger fix are getting choosy. The Huffington Post has been around for a long time and its flavour of pablum probably doesn't have the appeal it did early in the decade when clickbait was at its financial peak. It's all about Twitter now.
 
RJ MacReady said:
I wonder if there's just so many platforms churning out overlapping Trump-related garbage that tiers of quality have formed inside of it and people in need of their anger fix are getting choosy. The Huffington Post has been around for a long time and its flavour of pablum probably doesn't have the appeal it did early in the decade when clickbait was at its financial peak. It's all about Twitter now.
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Who needs professional rage-bait writers when you can just read the Tweets of your fellow Reeeeeeeeeesistors that are of equal quality without ads or obligations?
 
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