The Onion gets a new owner

Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm, bought The Onion from Univision Communications Inc. Plus, the firm bought several other Gawker Media properties, including Gizmodo, Deadspin and Jezebel, to Great Hill Partners. Great Hill Partners has enlisted veteran digital editor Jim Spanfeller to run the new outfit. Spanfeller once headed Forbes.com and went on to build a digital content company that he sold to Tronc Inc.—not an intentionally satirical name itself, and later changed back to Tribune Publishing -- in 2017. He will be a “significant” investor in the new company created from the Univision assets, to be called G/O Media, Great Hill said in a statement. The sale, for undisclosed terms, marks the second ownership change for the former Gawker Media empire in three years. Univision bought the former Gawker sites, except the namesake flagship, for $135 million in a 2016 bankruptcy auction, intent on expanding beyond its niche in Spanish programming. The company struggled to get a return from its online properties and has offered employees buyout packages to cut costs. Since the 2016 sale, the fortunes of digital-media companies have soured as Facebook Inc. and Google have taken ever-larger shares of online advertising dollars away from publishers. Other digital-media companies, including BuzzFeed Inc. and Vice Media Inc., have dismissed employees in recent months as the industry tightens its belt. — Bloomberg News Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'

[ Advertising Age | 2019-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Country Spotlight: Singapore: Literary Publishing

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Snapchat's Redesign Is Aimed at Attracting More Eyeballs for Publishers and Brands

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[ AdWeek | 2016-06-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Header-bidding tech should be free. An open letter to publishers

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The Growing Importance Of Ad Viewability

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Internal training documents reveal how Facebook tackles diversity, bias, and discrimination

Workforce diversity is something that has been brought into sharp focus in recent months as companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook reveal the make-up of their staff. White, middleclass, male employees dominate the world of technology, and this is certainly the case at Facebook -- even... Continue reading at Betanews

[ Betanews | 2015-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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EU Regulators Investigate Amazon's E-Book Practices

The move continues a trend of cracking down on the operations of major tech companies in Europe.In recent months, European regulators increasingly have been scrutinizing the practices of U.S. tech giants that dominate their respective industries, focusing their investigatory efforts on Amazon,... Continue reading at Fast Company

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Three indie ventures launch

A flurry of new independent publishers with small lists and new approaches to author relationships has launched in recent months.  Hannah MacDonald, formerly of HarperCollins, has founded September Publishing, which publishes its first four titles across spring and summer.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is Dawn Finally Breaking For E-books in Spanish? Spanish Books Spring 2014

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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ALA 2014 Preview: Meet the Team

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Facebook Drives Massive New Surge Of Traffic To Publishers

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Sarah Redohl

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SkyDrive, Complex team up for digital magazine distribution

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HMV begins store closure programme

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