CBS buys CNet Networks

Posted by Erik

May 15, 2008

CBS purchased CNet Networks Inc today for $1.8 billon. You can add this to the list of large purchases by big businesses out there. It seems many companies are making ’strategic acquisitions’ of online services or businesses in order to boost their overall revenue. News Corp bought Myspace for $580 million a few years back and then Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion and then DoubleClick for $3.1 billion (just to name a few). Those three purchases, I believe, were great decisions on behalf of the, now, parent companies. But why CNet, CBS? They’ve been around for over a decade! The three aforementioned companies were youngins when they were bought out and were doing quite well at the time. Don’t get me wrong - I enjoy reading news on CNET. I just don’t understand how they can be worth $1.8 billion.

Oh Wait, I remember!

CNET owns a number of great sites to have ownership of (because of their age and experience of course). They own mp3.com, tv.com, zdnet.com and gamespot.com to name a few. CNET may not be a bad purchase for CBS afterall. They’ll be able to plug their content in a site-specific (targeted) manner and possibly grow through this. I must say when CNET launched bnet.com I was impressed with it’s overall approach and content. Hopefully the acquisition won’t change the content based drive of these sites.

CBS stock closed today down $0.59 (2.38%) after the announcement. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Share and Enjoy: