Friday, March 24, 2006
McClatchy/Knight-Ridder Deal: More Than Newspapers
byMedia coverage surrounding McClatchy’s recent acquisition of Knight-Ridder has understandably focused on the 32 newspapers included in the deal.
However, a significant (and relatively under-publicized) aspect of the purchase is Knight-Ridder’s various online ventures. McClatchy inherits Knight-Ridder’s diverse interests in several online advertising and publishing sites. One agency executive valued Knight-Ridder’s Internet investments at more than $1 billion.
The Knight-Ridder digital holdings include:
- Partial ownership of careerbuilder.com, a leading site for employment listings (this wasn’t part of the acquisition, but McClatchy is reportedly pursuing it pending approval by the site’s other shareholders)
- A news aggregator site, topix.net
- Knight-Ridder’s share of Classified Ventures (which includes cars.com and other sites)
- The Real Cities Network, consisting of nearly 100 newspaper sites across the country
- Knight-Ridder digital, which coordinates digital assets for its newspapers
Any acquisition brings its share of operational hurdles, but the online challenges seem especially complex. Will McClatchy integrate Knight-Ridder’s technology infrastructure and online newsgathering? How will national and local online advertisers be affected? What happens to the sites of 12 Knight-Ridder newspapers that will be immediately sold by McClatchy? It’ll be interesting to follow these developments in the upcoming months.
