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CNET is being sold to competitor Ziff Davis for $100 million following a sharp decline in traffic and controversies around use of AI.
The sale by current owners Red Ventures places CNET alongside other noteworthy publications owned by Ziff Davis, including IGN, Lifehacker, Mashable, and PCMag.
The news was confirmed by Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah to The New York Times. The report also confirmed the value of the deal stood at a sum of “over $100 million,” far below CNET’s previous valuation of $500 million in 2020. The deal is also expected to include ZDNet, Variety noted.
This is quite the change of fortunes as CNET’s parent company, CNET Networks, paid $1.6 billion to acquire Ziff Davis’ website, including technology website ZDNet and later Builder.com in the early 2000s. CNET Networks was eventually acquired by CBS in 2008 for $1.8 billion, which continued to hold ownership until 2020, when CNET and ZDNet, along with other non-tech sites in the network, were sold to Red Ventures for around $500 million.
Meanwhile, Ziff Davis, a prominent publishing company dating back to the 1920s and running various hobbyist magazines and later TV channels, filed for bankruptcy in 2008. In 2010, it was revived by former Time executive, Vivek Shah, with funding from a private equity firm. Over the following decade, Ziff Davis continued to acquire leading media outlets including IGN, Mashable, and PCMag, along with a host of other internet services such as the Speedtest.net owner Ookla.
The upcoming CNET acquisition is part of Ziff Davis’ plans to use up its existing cash of $800 million to acquire other leading media brands.
CNET’s Sale was Long Speculated
Though the sharp decline in CNET’s valuation since 2018 has surprised many, it was at least somewhat signposted in recent times. The publication faced a series of controversies over the last year, with revelations about the use of AI in generating content without disclosures, followed by layoffs of roughly 50% of its news and video teams, and eventual unionization to protect workers’ rights amidst the execution of AI-generated content.
As of January 2024, Red Ventures was already looking to offload CNET due to continuously declining web traffic and lower ad revenue, Axios had reported. According to stats from Similarweb, CNET’s monthly traffic fell from roughly 120 million unique visitors to under 40 million in June 2024.
Despite the murky future of online publishing, especially with chatbots slowly geared to replace web search – and hurt publishers, Shah sounded optimistic about content. He told the NYT: “There’s lots of choice that requires advice [on technology and telecom products]. So I think there’s just real editorial need for it.”
