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Consumerist, a Gawker Media blog about consumer tips, was purchased by the Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports. CU president and CEO Jim Guest said, "We're delighted to add this vibrant site to our portfolio of information products. The Consumerist community is passionate about fair retail practices, truth in advertising, product safety, and other topics that Consumer Reports has championed for more than 70 years. The site is a perfect fit for advancing our mission of creating a fair, safe, and just marketplace." Consumerist editor Ben Popken will stay on as co-executive editor, and he said, "Consumerist.com is now assured of a strong, healthy future." The NY Times reports that the next Gawker Media blog for sale is Defamer, which covers Hollywood gossip (Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton thinks online advertising declines will be steep in 2009!).
Consumers Union Buys Consumerist; Defamer for Sale
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So does this mean Consumerist is going to continue it's long held tradition of publishing the inane rants filled with libel and wild accusations from any angry customer that they will never bother fact-checking and continue to claim it's 'news'?
How much did it sell for?
Yeah, how much? It can give a sense of the exit strategy for Gothamist.
I've seen structure on a couple of these 'mainstream media buys hipster blog in order to appear hip and connected' deals. Would bet there are about nine performance metrics that will have to be met over transition period and three 'on second thought' clauses between this announcement and any kind of payment on sale, regardless what the sale amount reports as. Aside from that, my own guess would be modest sale price in low six territory with hopes that this one is a fire starter: sell one off low and report it widely in press with the hope being to jump-start a sale or bidding on the next one for sale. (i.e. "Gawker Media reports the next blog for sale in the Gawker Empire is....")
The "Istaverse" just gets murkier by the week.
One article I read guessed at a selling price of one to two million. Which seems low.
I very much expect CR to reign them in over time.
I operate TrueDelta.com, which provides vehicle reliability information. Our information has two large advantages over that of Consumer Reports:
1. Report actual repair rates, not just vague dots, to make the differences between models much clearer.
2. Results promptly updated four times a year; so our information averages about ten months ahead of CR’s.
But, since we’re a competitor, you’ll never see CR mention our information, and I’m personally not allowed to mention my site in their forums–even when I have information that they cannot provide. Now that they’ve bought the Consumerist, I suspect the same will be true for it.
Quite a few times a journalist has told me that he can’t write about the unique information TrueDelta.com offers car buyers, because part of what the site offers competes with information offered by their employer.
In other words, from where I sit media consolidation isn’t a good thing. Each media outlet has its own interests, and these come before the interests of readers. The larger these outlets get, the broader their interests get, and the more delimited their reporting gets. Even in CR’s case. CR is for CR first, consumers second.
They’ve somehow convinced many in the media that they deserve to be the sole voice for consumer interests. They’d love to either buy or silence all competitors. There are good reasons this isn’t allowed when the aspiring monopolist is a for-profit firm, and the same reasons should apply to CR.