Verizon announced plans to buy a digital media company, but not the one many people were expecting. Verizon said on Monday that it is buying a company called Complex Media, and made no announcement about whether it is bidding for Yahoo. (Preliminary bids for the troubled online media company were due yesterday, but Yahoo and its bankers have made no announcements yet about who submitted a bid.)
Verizon is buying Complex Media in partnership with Hearst, the publisher that is also part of Verizon’s deal to buy AwesomenessTV. The two buyers will each own half of Complex Media.
Complex Media excels at delivering millennial male viewers to advertisers, according to Verizon. The company’s properties include Collider.com and a 50% stake in YouTube’s Ride Channel, which focuses on news and videos about skateboarding.
The deal price was not disclosed. Last fall, Hearst Media invested $21 million in Complex Media, bringing the total raised by Complex to $52 million.
“The decision to acquire Complex is certainly a continuation of our media strategy, which is focused on disruption that is occurring in digital media and content distribution, and involves building a portfolio of the emerging digital brands of the future for the millennial and Gen-Z audience,” said Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s senior vice president of consumer product and marketing. “When we look at Complex and how well they’ve built audiences by championing the digital convergence of cultures for well over a decade, it pairs well with our strategic vision and current shifts in content consumption.”
The Complex deal is the latest in a string of media acquisitions for Verizon, the biggest of which was AOL. Earlier this month the company announced plans to buy a 24.5% stake in AwesomenessTV, in a deal that valued that property at $650 million. Hearst will also own 24.5% and Dreamworks Animation Studios will own 50%. Verizon plans to leverage AwesomenessTV to launch a new video service that will operate as an independent brand, and feature “premium transactional content for a variety of audiences on par with the highest-end content seen on television today.” In the U.S., the service will only be available through Verizon’s Go90 platform. Go90 is available to customers of other wireless carriers, not just to Verizon Wireless customers.
Verizon’s latest acquisition comes as almost 40,000 of the company’s union workers are on strike. Call center workers and technicians say they are opposing the company’s plans to hire more contract workers, freeze pension plans, and streamline the process of laying off workers.
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