This year’s media meltdown chaos is picking up again.
Six month after layoffs, labor unrest and contracts began rocking the media sector, the business continues to face dramatic challenges. Tuesday saw a number of examples.
In a major deal, Ziff Davis cut a deal to acquire CNet from Red Ventures for about $100 million. CNet — which CBS acquired for $1.8 billion and subsequently sold to Red Ventures four years ago for $500 million — will join other tech outlets like Mashable, PCMag and LifeHacker in the Ziff Davis stable. But the sharp decline in value underscores the perilous media moment.
It is not immediately clear what will happen to CNet staff.
Meanwhile, two venerable TV trade publications, Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News, will shut down, according to their owner Future Plc, citing the “rapid transformation” of the industry. The Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame will continue, even as the print magazines and newsletters of the trade outlets end.
The outlets long served as a training ground for media and entertainment reporters, and as bibles for the broadcast and cable TV industries, with B&C tracing its print edition all the way back to 1931, when it launched as Broadcasting magazine.
Future says that it will launch a new SmartBrief newsletter and Nexttv.com website in October, though it is not clear what those news brands will look like.
And at Axios, one of the more successful digital news brands, CEO Jim VandeHei told staff today that the company will lay off 50 people, citing the “rapidly changing media landscape.” The company will still hire in what it deems growth areas, but is making cuts now to get ahead of what it sees as big changes coming to the industry, including the proliferation of AI-generated content and aggregation.
The turbulence, from fire sales to shutdowns to layoffs, also coincide with an advertising market that continues to struggle. And given the cuts made earlier this year, it suggests that the changes are far from over.