Acquisitions

QuinStreet, a vertical marketing and online media firm, has purchased select media assets from Ziff Davis Enterprises. The transaction included the acquisition of eWeek.com, CIOInsight.com, Baseline.com, ChannelInsider.com and WebBuyersGuide.com among other assets.

The goal of the deal was to add additional technology media brands to QuinStreet’s online portfolio, expand the company’s reach into mobile marketing, and further develop relationships within the B2B technology space in addition to adding a roster of writers from the sites purchased.

“Ziff Davis Enterprise has a rich history in the B2B technology media and marketing space and is synonymous with quality and client service. This acquisition expands QuinStreet’s ability to service our B2B technology clients at scale, with high-quality, targeted, measurable marketing results,” said Doug Valenti, QuinStreet CEO.

Of note, in 2009, QuinStreet purchased Internet.com from mediabistro.com’s parent company WebMediaBrands.

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Another acquisition for Meredith Corporation. This time, the media company is acquiring the assets to FamilyFun from Disney Publishing Worldwide, a deal set to close in 30 days. The magazine has an audience of six million. The first issue published by Meredith is expected March 2012.

This addition to its parenting category, which already includes Parents and American Baby, comes on the heels of acquiring food titles Every Day with Rachael Ray and EatingWell.

“We are delighted to add the FamilyFun brand to our expanding media portfolio,” says Meredith National Media Group president Tom Harty. “This acquisition further strengthens our leadership position and reach among women in both the parenthood and food spaces, and offers our advertisers additional channels to reach these consumers.”

For Disney, this means a stronger focus on its children initiatives.

“Moving forward, Disney Publishing Worldwide will focus on our core children’s magazine and book businesses, our rapidly growing digital initiatives, and our Disney English language learning program,” says Russell Hampton, president, Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Meredith Corporation and Reader’s Digest Association have completed the agreement for Meredith to acquire Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine and its related digital assets.  In addition, Meredith announced it has finalized a 10-year licensing agreement with Watch Entertainment Inc. for the award-winning brand.

The acquisition includes the popular magazine that’s published 10 times annually with a 7.4 million audience.  The first issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray published under the Meredith banner will be February 2012, available on newsstands in early January.

“We are energized to bring the Every Day with Rachael Ray brand to market as part of the Meredith portfolio,” said Meredith National Media Group President Tom Harty.  “It represents a very important piece of the strategy we are executing to significantly enhance our already powerful reach in the food space.”

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If there’s one service more people should be using, in FishbowlNY’s humble opinion, it’s Skype. Few people Stateside really care about Skype, but whenever FishbowlNY goes on vacation, it notes that the rest of the world can’t seem to live without it.

But Facebook and Google are catching on, and both are reportedly in talks to strike a deal with Skype, sources have told Reuters. If Skype will have them! Mark Zuckerberg has been in internal talks about buying Skype, and Google has been having separate discussions.

Skype was planning an IPO, until it was pushed back to the second half of 2011. An IPO, according to one source, could raise about $1 billion. Other sources indicated that a deal with Facebook or Google could approach $3 to $4 billion. Or, as FishbowlNY has noted, 300-400 times what The Daily lost in the first quarter.

Metro Networks has a presence in most New York City TV and radio stations. Chances are the traffic reports you’re hearing or seeing are either done at Shadow/Metro studios in Rutherford, New Jersey or the stations pay a service to use their information. (Certain newscasts are also farmed out to Metro.) 

Now comes word that Clear Channel has purchased that portion of Westwood One.

Wendy Goldberg, Clear Channel EVP of Marketing and Communications tells FishbowlNY that for now, though, Metro employees will not be affected by the sale.

“It’s business as usual, “Goldberg says. “In the next few months, we will be assessing how the teams and product work together.”

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There has been much condensing and slashing since the Aol Huffington Post merger, and now Mediaite reports that Aol News is officially folding into Huffington Post, and will no longer be producing any of its own original content.

This does not mean that the Aol News brand will cease to exist, but that all of the content will be produced and overseen by the Huffington Post team. So will Huffington Post completely overhaul Aol News with its, in the words of Bill Keller, “celebrity gossip, adorable kitten videos” and “left-wing soundtrack”?

The folding of the Aol News department and replacement by HuffPost will create an interesting dynamic between the more predominantly “red state” Aol users who will now be directed to “blue state” oriented Huffington Post content. Regardless, this provides the most convincing argument to date that Huffington Post was only “acquired by Aol,” as far as the finance departments are concerned.

What also remains to be seen is how many more layoffs might occur at Aol. So far the tally is up to 750 people, not to mention the freelancers.

When news came Monday that Hearst was set to buy the magazines published outside of France by Lagardère, it was estimated that layoffs at Lagardère’s U.S. division Hachette Filipacchi would be as high as 30 percent.

The New York Post now reports that the headcount at Hachette Filipacchi Media, whose flagship magazine is Elle, is down to to 633, according to a spokeswoman. Hearst is said to be expecting to retain only about 350 HFM employees, once its agreement with Lagardère is finalized (supposedly before July 1). That would mean a downsizing of about 45 percent of the current HFM workforce.

At this point, the Post reports that advertising, marketing, and editorial are not expected to sustain major losses, and much of the firings will be from the back-office operations.

Hearst is set to buy the magazines published outside of France by Paris-based Lagardère for about $900 million, the New York Post reports.

Lagardère’s, whose U.S. division Hachette Filipacchi publishes such titles as Elle, Woman’s Day, and Car and Driver, and Hearst, which publishes Cosmopolitan and Esquire, among a number of other magazines, are expected to announce the deal as early as today.

The deal, which would bring under one roof the Hachette media group and Hearst magazines, would make Hearst the clear leader in the international magazine business, so, watch out Time Inc.

But in case you think this is great news for the magazine business, think again: the Post reports that the merger is expected to result in a massive bloodletting of 30 percent or more of the work force. No word yet on where the layoffs are expected to occur.

It’s time to take stock of what is left standing at AOL after the massive cleaning taking place in light of the merger with Huffington Post.

Pre-merger, if you compared AOL and Huffington Post section by section, there was a considerable amount of overlap between the two sites. Post-merger, it’s up to Arianna Huffington to decide which sections stay and which sections go, based on whether the AOL version or the Huffington Post version is more profitable or promising.

The site slashing has begun. Forbes reports:

All told, some 30 brands will be “integrated” into other properties… Among those to be absorbed are Politics Daily (folded into HuffPost Politics), Walletpop (folded into Daily Finance), Urlesque (folded into HuffPost Comedy), Luxist (folded into Stylelist) and TV Squad (folded into AOL TV).

But all the merger casualties are not just on the AOL side; as Kara Swisher notes, “It goes both ways, though–the Huffington Post’s travel site will be closed in favor of AOL’s stronger offering in that arena.” Other popular AOL brands, such as its PopEater celebrity site and its StyleList fashion site, will keep their names but no longer exist as separate destination sites.

According to a company press release, Philadelphia and Boston magazine publisher Metrocorp has acquired Foobooz – a Philly-focused foodie favorite blog (try saying that five times fast).  Foobooz founder and editor Arthur Etchells will be added to Philadelphia’s staff as a full-time digital product manager and will manage Foobooz with the help of magazine editor Kirsten Henri.  Metrocorp president David Lipson emphasized Foobooz’s value to the company as well as readers:

Since the very first issue of Philadelphia magazine, providing information to readers about dining out has been one of our core strengths.  In this great food city, dining out continues to be our audience’s favorite source of entertainment. The addition of Foobooz to the Philadelphia magazine content offerings allows us to bolster our position as the leading source for people to figure out where they want to eat in this region.

Following the addition of Foobooz, Philadelphia’s current blog — The Restaurant Club — will serve as an event series and offer special dining opportunities for visitors.  Metrocorp will debut Fooboz in the Boston area by 2011 and has plans to launch the blog nationwide in the future.