Edmund Lee of Bloomberg News takes a look at the revenue generated by All Things Digital, the tech news site whose leaders Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher are leaving Dow Jones & Co. and striking out on their own.
Lee writes, “Mossberg and Swisher have approached other media companies, including the New York Times, about a joint venture to create a similar conference under a new brand, according to three executives familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
“Tickets to AllThingsD’s most recent conference, at the end of May, cost $5,500 each, for a total of $2.75 million. The conference also takes sponsors — such as Oracle Corp. and Sony Corp. — which pay as much as $400,000 each, adding up to more revenue than ticket sales generate, according to two people with direct knowledge of the business.
“The website only brings in about $3 million to $4 million in annual ad revenue, most of it tied to deals that also run across Dow Jones’s other sites, such as wsj.com, one of the people said. As a stand-alone entity, AllThingsD.com would only generate about $1 million a year, the person said.
“The company declined to comment on what will happen to the AllThingsD brand. AllThingsD recently added two new events — one focused on media and another on the mobile industry — in an effort to expand the franchise.”
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