Ziff Davis is acquiring CNET for $100 million

Ziff Davis inked a deal to acquire CNET for about $100 million, marking the third corporate parent for the pioneering tech news and reviews site in four years, reports Todd Spangler of Variety.

Spangler writes, “In 2008, CBS had acquired CNET Networks for $1.8 billion. In 2020, as Paramount Global (then known as ViacomCBS) was seeking to offload non-core assets, the media conglomerate sold CNET to digital-marketing company Red Ventures for $500 million.

“CNET is the latest roll-up acquisition for Ziff Davis, whose digital media portfolio includes PC Mag, Mashable, IGN and Lifehacker (which it bought from G/O Media last year). It’s a turnabout of sorts: In 2002, CNET Networks Inc., then a publicly traded company, closed a $1.6 billion deal to acquire Ziff-Davis Inc. (a separate entity from the current Ziff Davis) and online news network ZDNet.

“Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah confirmed the company’s deal to buy CNET from Red Ventures to the New York Times. ‘Technology and telecom products and services — whether for an individual, their home or business — continue to be complicated,’ Shah told the Times.”

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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.