NBC Straightens up MSNBC; Buys Stake in Vox, Buzzfeed
by Chriss W. Street 16 Aug 2015Newport Beach, CA
NBC announced last week that
it will straighten-up MSNBC’s
left-wing slant and make a $200 million investment in Vox Media.
Instead of hiring haggard trade-union socialists to try
to build a millennial brand, NBCUniversal is finally decided to buy into
one.
With NBC management leaking the new mandate to play it
straight, the Wall Street Journal reported that MSNBC will abandon its “Lean Forward” branding in its upcoming
reset to focus on Brian Williams’ rolling breaking news
throughout the day, now that his suspension is over.
As the perpetually third-ranked cable
news network, MSNBC’s energy level peaked during the 2011
“Occupy Wall Street”
protests. But it seems even unwashed Marxist urban campers raging against bourgeois society
did not choose to “lean-in” inside their tents and watch MSNBC on cable.
Finally giving up the dream, MSNBC has decided to sweep the
leftist troika of “The Ed Show,” “Now with Alex Wagner,”
and “The Cycle” into the
dustbin of history.
Comcast, NBCU’s parent, was already moving away from MSNBC
as a vehicle to gain a millennial audience when it invested in Vox
Media last year through Comcast Ventures at a pre-money valuation of $850
million. NBCU plans to plow $200 million into Vox Media with the new deal
valuing Vox at more than $1 billion–triple its $300 million in total VC
funding, according to “Re/code.com”
sources.
Just 16 months ago, Vox launched an Internet news website
led by the Washington Post’s wunderkind Ezra Klein with Matthew Yglesias, Dylan Matthews,
and Melissa Bell.
Klein said when he joined Vox that news coverage had been as
appealing as “spinach.” He promised to revolutionize news coverage by
prioritizing explanation and analysis by adding the needed
“drizzle of olive oil and hint of sea salt” to make spinach tasty.
Vox’s signature feature under Klein became the reusable,
wiki-like “card stack,” which provides context and
key definitions related to an article topic. According to third-party web
analytics feed SimilarWeb, Vox’s
growth has been astounding. The site has over 16 million unique visitors each
month and is ranked #24 among News and
Media magazines and e-zines sites.
The “New Wave” news sites’ audience has been growing at a
much faster pace than traditional media. Players like Breitbart attract conservatives; Vox gets the populist crowd, BuzzFeed entertains
with a mix of addictive animal videos and some news reports; Vice offers less-filtered news video; and Fusion provides both irreverence and context on the news
of the day.
They all are aiming to win significant shares of
the millennial market. Similar in size to the baby boomers market, that segment
runs in age between 14 and 34, with a total population of about 78 million in
the United States.
Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff told
Re/code.com that with the follow-on investment, Vox and NBCUniversal “now have
a commercial partnership.” They will collaborate on digital advertising and
work together on video advertising and video programming, and Vox Media
employees will appear more frequently on other NBCU-owned networks, like
CNBC.
Stephen Beck, founder and managing partner of media
consultancy cg42 told Adweek, “Vox
Media is positioned very directly against benefiting from the trend of younger
individuals consuming more and more content through the web and digital
channels and less and less through traditional channels.” He added, “Comcast is
the poster child in having the most frustration among its customer base. That’s
magnified among the younger audience.”
NBCU is also reportedly close to
making an investment in BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed is
expected to be valued at $1.5 billion after its NBCU investment of $200
million, according to Re/code, which is owned by Vox Media. It is believed that
secondary sales are involved in the BuzzFeed investment, as early stage
investors or employees sell some of their shares.
MSNBC
Morning
Joe is a MSNBC program.
Note: Ezra Klein is a
frequent guest on Morning Joe, and
the editor-in-chief for Vox.
Vox
is a web site for Vox Media.
James P. Bankoff
is the chairman & CEO for Vox Media,
and a senior adviser for the Providence
Equity Partners.
Richard D. Parsons
is a senior adviser for the Providence
Equity Partners, and a friend of Kenneth
B. Lerer.
Kenneth
B. Lerer is a friend of Richard D.
Parsons, and the chairman for BuzzFeed.
Providence
Equity Partners was an investor in Hulu,
LLC.
Hulu,
LLC is a content provider, subsidiary of NBCUniversal.
MSNBC
is an NBCUniversal network.
Harold E. Ford Jr.
is a political commentator at MSNBC,
was an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant
(think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the International Rescue Committee, and the Robin Hood Foundation.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Tom
Brokaw is an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, was a director at the Robin Hood Foundation, and an anchor for the NBC Nightly News.
Brian Williams is
director at the Robin Hood Foundation,
and was an anchor for the NBC Nightly
News.
Jeff
Zucker was an executive producer for the NBC Nightly News, the president & CEO for NBCUniversal, and is a director at the Robin Hood Foundation.
Michael R.
Bloomberg was a donor for the Robin
Hood Foundation, and is the founder of Bloomberg
LP.
Bloomberg
Politics is a division of Bloomberg
LP.
Mark
Halperin is a founding editor for Bloomberg
Politics, a frequent guest on Morning
Joe, and his father is Morton H.
Halperin.
Morning
Joe is a MSNBC program.
Morton H. Halperin
is Mark Halperin’s father, a senior
adviser for the Open Society Foundations,
and was a senior fellow at the Center
for American Progress.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Center for American Progress.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and was a supporter for the Center for American Progress.
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