Well… what can I say? Maybe News Corp./NBC have been delaying, ok, biding their time to unveil their joint venture until they found a bidder for their $1B valuation price tag. According to NYT:
The joint venture between NBC Universal and the News Corporation to bring their television shows and movies onto the Internet still lacks a Web site. It still has no name. It also has yet to announce a clear mission that persuades the large number of skeptical observers that real-world rivals can cooperate online.
But the company, still known only by the working name of “New Site,” now has some deeper pockets. Providence Equity Partners, a media investment firm based in Rhode Island, has invested $100 million for a 10 percent stake in the joint venture, people with knowledge of the deal said.
The investment will allow the companies to accelerate the introduction of their service and the transfer of NBC and Fox films and television shows into Internet-friendly video formats. Adding Providence as a partner also spreads the financial of the networks and will no doubt make the venture more palatable to the boards at General Electric and the News Corporation, which, respectively, own NBC and Fox.
Providence is led by Jonathan M. Nelson, who sits on the boards of MGM, Warner Music Group and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network. He has a long history of investing in media properties like local newspapers, television stations and cable networks.
Providence Equity Partners and the News Corporation declined to comment on the deal, which sets a value on the joint venture of $1 billion.
It sounds like Spark Capital’s Todd Dagres reads this blog. Read on:
Todd Dagres, general partner at Spark Capital, a media and entertainment-focused venture capital firm, said it was a startlingly rich valuation for a company that could most likely not be sold or go public, considering NBC and the News Corporation hold large stakes. “It’s a sign of the times when a company that didn’t exist a couple months ago can raise this kind of money,” he said.
That’s exactly what I said, some time ago, here.
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WatchMojo NewsletterWith the announcement that GigaOm was hiring a COO, raising more money, I think it’s safe to say that 2007 will mark both the end and new beginning of blogs… as business.
Clearly, the number of blogs in high tech alone is numbing: Rafat Ali, Michael Arrington, Om Malik have clearly been joined by others in trying to usurp market share in tech reporting.
Technically, HipMojo.com is in that lot, too, though we don’t really want to be in the business of news reporting per se, and rather, try to offer commentary, analysis from the perspective of an insider. Think think-thank, with a vantage point, if I dare say that. I clearly see the need for these businesses to delineate editorial from business, as would any media company.
Anyway, this comes on the heels of PaidContent’s expansion into the UK, and Tech Crunch hiring a COO and being on the cusp of raising money too. There’s nothing wrong with these content sites raising money of course, the opportunity is huge and they’re applying pressure to traditional news and trade media publications. It’s just clear that when magazines such Business 2.0 are about to be kyboshed and these blog empires are expanding, the line between blog network and old media is pretty much dead. You can’t really get away with trying not to play by news reporting rules when you are, in fact, reporting the news and competing with news organizations. That applies here too, I have way too much inside information by way of being an executive that I don’t really feel I should disclose ASAP. Obviously it adds to the merit of some of the posts and what not, but as we grow, too, I realize that before you press publish, you have some ethical guidelines to abide by, and just because you’re on Wordpress, MovableType etc., does not mean you are above those rules.
Hence the 2007: Blogs - RIP; Long Live Blogs moniker.
