It has recently been announced that AOL will be buying the Huffington Post for a tidy sum of $315 million. As businesses become increasingly content-driven, acquisitions seem like a good way of increasing a company’s brand and media presence without all the hassle of designing and maintaining large (and credible) media channels from scratch. AOL, like many companies, hopes that such acquisitions will help bring new consumers to the company’s existing product and service lines.
Revenue growth alone is no longer the only driving force behind many acquisitions today. While successful acquisitions will increase revenue, content is what appeals to many interested buyers. Will the content complement what we currently produce? Does it fit with our current audience, or are we trying to capture a new audience? Who’s going to sustain its creation? How can we profit from it? These are all questions media-conscious companies are asking themselves while contemplating an acquisition.
Online content may be relatively cheap to produce, but companies aren’t simply buying the content; they are buying the brand and the followers of that brand. I believe AOL did the intelligent thing by allowing the Huffington Post to take control its content channels. In too many cases, companies will acquire a media outlet only to ruin its viability by trying to control it. By giving the Huffington Post control, they are saving the brand, its followers, and putting their own content in the hands of a company who is used to creating content for the consumer. Unlike the AOL/Time Warner debacle, I foresee this partnership going the distance.
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