Media Companies Are (Still) Changing Hands Like Hotcakes

Facing a challenging environment in which publishers are competing with big tech companies (namely Facebook and Google, though Amazon is rising) for digital ad dollars, media companies have banded together and merged, consolidating resources to ride out the turbulence. It’s a tactic as old as the industry itself, and just this week a number of companies have joined the trend. Great Hill Partners, the private equity firm that runs G/O Media, is selling satire site ClickHole to Cards Against Humanity, an adult-themed card game. Dotdash acquired Mother Nature Network and TreeHugger. Earlier today, Spotify bought The Ringer, the sports and culture site from Bill Simmons. Financial details were not disclosed in any of the transactions. Dotdash is no stranger to acquiring publishers when it thinks they'll fit its portfolio of evergreen content creators and no-nonsense attitude toward advertising. The media company (formerly About.com) gobbled up a number of websites, including liquor.com, Byrdie, MyDomaine and Brides last year alone. This practice has given Dotdash a framework for when it brings on new companies, with their two most recent acquisitions centered on sustainability. "It’s a great business opportunity. People really care about these things now," said Neil Vogel, CEO of Dotdash. "We’ll put them on our tech platform that makes these sites super fast and super responsive," Vogel said, later adding, "We take people who have been a smaller publisher, who don't have the resources we have." Dotdash will "continue to very aggressively look at things that will help grow this area." Cards Against Humanity, meanwhile, doesn't seem like it necessarily is getting into the media business in a big way, a major indicator being its very nontraditional business model: giving control of ClickHole to employees, who will stay on, and relaunching with a new website. “We don’t want to be a publisher, and we’re not really thinking of this as an investment with a huge return. We just want ClickHole to be around for 100 years," said Cards co-creator Max Temkin in a statement. A spokesman for G/O Media said there are no additional plans to sell off any other of its websites, which include The Onion, Gizmodo and Deadspin. But new media partners have been formed in New York Media and Vox Media; Vice Media Group and Refinery29; and Group Nine Media and PopSugar. It's a trend that will likely continue into 2020. With each deal, however, one unknown is what happens to the employees when consolidations happen. So far, The Ringer's 90-person staff will head to Spotify. Despite the risks, partnerships and acquisitions are a good way for media organizations to chase scale and compete for ad dollars, said Maggie Mesa, vice president of publisher partnerships at OpenX. "There is definitely a benefit for pubs in having a larger, scaled audience, especially around specific verticals, and when you consider the pressure pubs are facing in terms of price, digital ad dollars going to the walled gardens, and the eventual death of the cookie, moves like this make a lot of sense," Mesa said.