CMP Media buys pintday.org
For immediate release.
For immediate release.
CMP Media LLC, a leading integrated media company, and pintday.org, a pointless privately-run serial web site, today announced CMP’s intention to purchase a 51% controlling share in the web site’s online publishing operations.
CMP Media couples editorial strength with numerous media properties to offer marketers comprehensive, multiple media solutions tailored to meet their individual needs. CMP’s products and services include newspapers, magazines, Internet products, research, direct marketing services, education and training, trade shows and conferences, and custom publishing. Online media properties owned by CMP include TechWeb, CommWeb, EETimes Network, and the Windows Developer Network.
“We have long admired pintday.org for its innovative approach to publishing, its strong editorial voice, and its excellent grammar,” Charles U. Farley, VP/Director CMP’s Corporate Custom Media Solutions Group said in a statement.
“I have always admired CMP Media, whose corporate culture is known for producing quality publications and advancing circulation. Based on its unique core values and its belief in pintday.org’s vision, we are partnering with CMP to build the pd.o into a first class publication,” said Kjell Wooding, Executive BOFH and co-founder of pintday.org.
“When the pd.o was founded in 1998, we estimated that there were millions of people working for myopic companies who hated their jobs, hated their bosses, or were just generally having a rotten time of it. In the past few years, we have been able to attract literally dozens of them our site, at least two of whom now consider the pd.o central to their businesses, careers and professions.”
Price Not Disclosed
The parties expect the deal to close by end of business today, subject to regulatory approval. Neither party is revealing the final sale price. “Suffice it to say, we’ll be heading to the pub to celebrate the close of this deal in true Pint Day fashion,” said Kev Needham, Pint Day contributor and now management consultant at CMP Media. “In other words, we’re going to blow it boo.com style.”
The money received for the sale of the site will be used to reduce the remaining debt load incurred by pintday.org’s predecessor Codetalker.com. Remaining funds will go toward financing the development of new technologies.
Once the deal is closed and pintday.org has a clean plate—no debt and some money in hand to back the business—CMP may consider taking its case to Wall Street.
“We are considering all options at this point,” Farley declared, noting that an attempt at an initial public offering is not out of the question. “And with the war now in full swing, the markets are now starting to look up.”
But for now, he said, “profitability is first and foremost—on the list of goals. Building up traffic to the pintday.org property and focusing on striking the right alliances, strategic developments, and partnerships also are high on the company’s to-do list, with the top priority being the acquisition of sufficient advertisers to fund pintday.org’s bandwidth expenses and new marketing overhead burdens.”
The deal does not include a division of pintday.org that continues to host Codetalker.com’s security archives. “We have no idea what these have to do with pintday.org’s core operations,” said CMP’s Farley. “We didn’t want to be stuck with the responsibility of hosting these ad infinitum. It’s not like anyone actually reads security advisories anyway.”
Editorial Stability
pintday.org’s ongoing publishing schedule will continue as an independent operating unit of CMP. “We have no plans to interfere with the high standards of this already successful publication,” Farley noted. “We only require that editorial statements leverage the positions of our other digital media properties and those of our advertisers, which allow us to produce the most comprehensive digital media experiences. So elements of questionable marketability, such as The List, and the strange references to a muffin will likely have to go.”
Randy Wooding, an analyst at Jupiter Communications, said the purchase of pintday.org will be of no benefit to CMP Media.
“What the hell pintday.org is?” said Wooding, “Who guys these are? Waste of money it is. Only compelling content have they is Yoda saga, and tired that is.”
CMP affirmed its positive vision of pintday.org’s future. “You can imagine that the board saw the value of this property and that it could come in line with other pure Internet companies, such as Salon.com or Jakob Nielson’s thing,” Farley said. “We just hope not to fuck it up like we did Byte Magazine.”
The Management · PDDXCIII
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