Bloomberg Media acquiring CityLab for undisclosed amount

Bloomberg Media intends to purchase CityLab, a brand from The Atlantic created in 2011 as a standalone website devoted to covering cities and how they are innovating for the future, reports Sara Jerde of Adweek.

Jerde reports, “The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year, and financial terms of the arrangement were not made public. It’s also the first acquisition the publisher has made since it acquired BusinessWeek in 2009 from McGraw-Hill for a reported $5 million. The CityLab brand will have access to Bloomberg Media’s footprint, which has arms in digital, TV, radio and print.

“‘What’s really exciting about the addition to CityLab to our portfolio is that it can be introduced into that model as a new multi-platform, global sub-brand that is super-serving a niche that we care about a lot, that we think is very valuable,’ Justin B. Smith, CEO of Bloomberg Media, told Adweek.

“Atlantic Media, of which Smith was previously the president, sought a diverse revenue stream in the early part of the decade and created an event series bringing together mayors and other leaders to discuss the challenges they face. Bloomberg Philanthropies has co-hosted the event with The Atlantic for the last seven years and will acquire the event series as part of the deal.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.