Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal company is close to a deal in which the “media giant” will invest a staggering $250 million to increase its holdings in several liberal websites -- including BuzzFeed and Vox Media -- as the corporation searches for ways to reach younger audiences, according to an article written by Shalini Ramachandran and Lukas Alpert for the Wall Street Journal's website on Thursday.
The reporters call BuzzFeed “a hot new media property that has built a huge audience of young users over the past several years.” The deal would increase the website's value to about $1.5 billion.
In addition, Comcast is in talks to raise its roughly 14 percent stake in Vox, which owns eight websites that together average more than 50 million unique visitors a month. That deal would value Vox Media at roughly $850 million.
Ramachandran and Alpert stated:
NBCUniversal owns channels including USA, Bravo, E! and MSNBC.
Like other media companies, the Comcast unit is struggling with the decline of ratings, particularly in younger demographics, as viewing shifts to online video and more people drop their pay television connections.
“The median age of prime-time TV viewing rose from 46.3 to 50.5 in the five years ending in June 2015,” according to a Horizon Media analysis of Nielsen data.
“People familiar with the proposed deals say they’re part of a new effort from NBCU CEO Steve Burke to bet on digital outlets he thinks can tap into millennial audiences, who are tuning out of NBCU’s TV networks and most others,” the reporters stated.
“BuzzFeed has quickly risen to the top of the digital media heap through its aggressive use of social media, which helped it draw in 79.6 million unique visitors in June,” according to comScore, Inc.
“In late 2014, the site received a $50 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz that valued it at $850 million,” the reporters stated. “Through cleverly constructed 'native ads' (produced by another department of the same company) or sponsored content, the site said it brought in more than $100 million in revenue last year.”
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said he wants to shift his whole company in that direction, and noted he is intent on finding audiences for all of his content outside of BuzzFeed.com -- which already attracts some 200 million visitors a month.
However, “as in all deal-making, these negotiations could fall apart.” But sources said “that all investments are close to being consummated.”
In an article for the recode.net website, authors Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka noted: "BuzzFeed had previously considered selling to Disney," but "people familiar with the company say its internal projections called for revenue of $250 million this year."
Also, BuzzFeed may see the strategic value of linking up with NBCUniversal, which owns a broadcast network, several cable channels and its own film studio.
Nevertheless, the site has also “increasingly turned its focus to video, which brings in substantially higher ad dollars than other kinds of advertising vehicles.”
“Companies like BuzzFeed and Vox Media are trying to navigate an increasingly crowded Web news landscape,” the reporters asserted, “and there are questions about the sustainability of building businesses primarily with advertising revenue.”
Not surprisingly, “NBCUniversal, BuzzFeed and Vox Media declined to comment” on the deal.
As NewsBusters previously reported, NBCUniversal has supported its share of liberal causes, including the proliferation of its news and entertainment programming to focus on “Earth Week” in April of 2011.
In early July, Vox Media chief political correspondent Jonathan Allen posted an odd article entitled “Confessions of a Clinton Reporter: The Media's Five Unspoken Rules for Covering Hillary.”
In Allen’s view, the media are ridiculously harsh on Hillary and the Clinton scandals. So naturally, Allen’s article was touted by leftist sites like Mother Jones, Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars, where Susie Madrak cooed: “Jonathan Allen in Vox spells out what we've been trying to tell you for years: Yes, there really are different rules for covering the Clintons.”
And just last week, Rachel Zarrell -- BuzzFeed's news editor – reacted to the shooting at a theater in Lafayette, La., by posting: “Let's just give everyone guns, right? It's in the goddamn constitution."
Twenty-one minutes later, she brushed aside the understandable calls for prayer for the victims to lobby for the usual liberal solution to firearms crimes: "Don't pray. Push for gun control.”
It wasn't long before Zarrell apologized for her insensitive tweets.
If this deal regarding Comcast, NBCUniversal, BuzzFeed and Vox Media goes through, we might be in for a lot of apologies from the people at these liberal companies.
