Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times reports Wednesday that Consumer Reports has agreed to acquire the Consumerist site for an undisclosed price.
“It is also something of a logical fit. Consumerist is popular, with about 1.8 million unique visitors a month, according to the online measurement service Quantcast, but has had trouble attracting advertising because the site often criticizes companies. Consumer Reports does not accept advertising, and once the sale closes on Jan. 1, neither will Consumerist.
“Unlike most magazines, Consumer Reports makes its money from subscriptions, which cost $26 for the Web site or print edition. In the company’s last fiscal year, which ended May 31, it had $229 million in revenue — up 10.6 percent from the previous year — from Consumer Reports and a handful of smaller magazines.
“In a year that has been difficult for magazines, Consumer Reports’ subscription and newsstand sales have risen. Circulation was 4.6 million, up from 4.3 million in 2007. The Web site has 3.3 million subscribers.”
Read more here.
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Definitely good compared to the Consumerist going away. However, I'm personally concerned about this purchase.
I operate TrueDelta.com, which provides vehicle reliability information. Our information has two large advantages over that of Consumer Reports:
1. Report actual repair rates, not just vague dots, to make the differences between models much clearer.
2. Results promptly updated four times a year; so our information averages about ten months ahead of CR's.
But, since we're a competitor, you'll never see CR mention our information, and I'm personally not allowed to mention my site in their forums--even when I have information that they cannot provide. Now that they've bought the Consumerist, I suspect the same will be true for it.
Quite a few times a journalist has told me that he can't write about the unique information TrueDelta.com offers car buyers, because part of what the site offers competes with information offered by their employer.
In other words, from where I sit media consolidation isn't a good thing. Each media outlet has its own interests, and these come before the interests of readers. The larger these outlets get, the broader their interests get, and the more delimited their reporting gets.