Verizon looking to sell media business, including TechCrunch and Yahoo Finance

Verizon Communications Inc. is looking to sell its media business, which includes TechCrunch and Yahoo Finance, reports Benjamin Mullin and Miriam Gottfried of The Wall Street Journal.

Mullin and Gottfriend report, “Verizon has cut jobs in the unit, and in November agreed to sell its HuffPost news division to BuzzFeed Inc. That followed a 2019 agreement to sell the Tumblr blogging platform for a nominal sum to the owner of WordPress.

“The business, which also includes Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Mail as well as news sites TechCrunch and Engadget, generated $7 billion of revenue in 2020, down 5.6% from the previous year due to a sharp advertising pullback during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Business picked up in the second half and the unit has logged two consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, including a boost of 10%, to $1.9 billion, in the first quarter.

“Despite the rebound, Verizon has focused much of its attention lately on partnerships with streaming-video services like Disney+ and Hulu that can be bundled with its wireless and home-Internet plans.”

Read more here.

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.