Consolidation in Financial Media

October 29, 2004 5:57am by Barry Ritholtz

Here’s two news stories you may have overlooked this week:

CNN will shut down its struggling CNNfn financial news network in mid-December, giving up its attempt after nine years to compete in a market dominated by CNBC. CNNfn was believed to be marginally profitable.

CNNfn only reaches 30 million homes (out of a possible 110 million). Its deal with Sat provider DirecTV was about to expire, and Murdoch/Fox is rumored to be considering a challenge to CNBC. In that battle, CNNfn would have been collateral damage.

On the internet side, CBS MarketWatch has been put up for sale by MarketWatch. They hope to get ~$400 million for the company. Possible suitors rumored to be bidding are CBS (Viacom) Dow Jones/ WSJ, New York Times Company, the Financial Times Group, as well as Yahoo.

I wish I could say this is a contrary indicator suggesting a long term bottom in the stock market. Instead, I suspect it is merely a sign of additional consolidation in the increasingly competitive media area, as dead tree editions look to bulk up their internet offerings.

Sources:
Financial network to end after nine years
Seattle Times
Friday, October 29, 2004
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002076026_bizbriefs29.html

MarketWatch, Web News Site, Is Up for Sale
Andrew Ross Sorkin
NY Times, October 28, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/business/media/28net.html

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