 Ronn Torossian |
One of the most recent rumors is the attempt by NBCUniversal to invest even more in hot web commodity BuzzFeed.
According to CNN, NBC is poised to drop another $200 million into the infotainment website … yes another $200 million. The company poured at least that much into BuzzFeed last year, cementing a strong business relationship with a site that’s going gangbusters.
CNN tried and failed to get a comment out of BuzzFeed, who evidently wasn’t in a chatty mood. But you can bet they love this. For years now, Big Media has scoffed at online upstart, failing to compete with them on a head-to-head basis, simply because the networks didn’t feel they needed to. Then came the 2010 midterms and the 2012 election. Where once 24-hour news networks ruled political talk, the rise of Facebook and Twitter has brought political blogs and entertainment media sites broad and constant popularity.
BuzzFeed itself is a microcosm of what’s changing in media. The company has two main segments: entertainment video and news. While “news” struggles, entertainment is flourishing, and the company is investing heavily in new video content to maximize the obvious trend in online media.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that NBCUniversal also invested $200 million in another online infotainment site, Vox. More political and distinctly partisan, Vox tends to be the liberal version of sites like Drudge and WesternJournalism, covering up-to-the-minute news and events with a flavor that appeals to MSNBC viewers. Some have said this is NBC’s slow drift to counter FOX’s right wing bent.
But partisanship aside, this is really about an effective and impacting business model. The old way of doing the news just isn’t working for TV media anymore, and even the old guard are slowly adhering to the new normal … even if they won’t admit it.
* * *
Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, a leading PR agency.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
