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Businesses The Internet

Fandom Buys TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot and Other Brands For About $50 Million In Cash (variety.com) 22

Posted by BeauHD from the new-acquisitions dept.
Fandom is rolling up a suite of entertainment and gaming content properties -- including TV Guide and Metacritic -- in a deal with digital-marketing company Red Ventures worth about $50 million. Variety reports: San Francisco-based Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News and Comic Vine under the deal. The sites collectively attract 46 million monthly active users, according to Fandom. Financial terms of the pact were not disclosed; a source familiar with the deal pegged it "in the mid-eight figures," with Fandom paying the roughly $50 million for the properties in cash. Red Ventures had acquired TV Guide, Metacritic and GameSpot in 2020 as part of its $500 million deal to buy the CNET Media Group from Paramount Global.

Founded in 2004, Fandom today hosts more than 250,000 user-curated wiki pages spanning pop culture, gaming, TV and film -- reaching some 300 million monthly active users. Fandom was founded by Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder, and entrepreneur Angela Beesley Starling. In 2018, Fandom was sold to a company backed by venture-capital firm TPG headed by Jon Miller.

The latest deal continues Fandom's expansion beyond its wiki-based roots. In 2018, Fandom acquired ScreenJunkies, producers of the popular "Honest Trailer" series, from now-defunct digital media company Defy Media. The company acquired Curse Media in 2019 which brought together gaming wikis with integrated digital gaming tools. In 2021, Fandom acquired Fanatical, a an online video-game retailer. Fandom Productions, the content arm of Fandom, will house GameSpot, TV Guide and Metacritic, along with the Honest Trailers team and the weekly video news program "The Loop."
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Fandom Buys TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot and Other Brands For About $50 Million In Cash More

Fandom Buys TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot and Other Brands For About $50 Million In Cash

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  • Time to pour one out for Gamefaqs

    • GameFAQs is an idea that cannot die.

      But the site has been bought and sold several times over the last 15 years. It isn’t even officially served from gamefaqs.com any more, and hasn’t been for awhile.

  • IT's the end of TV as we know it / and I feel fine (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Monday October 03, 2022 @06:58PM (#62935147)

    It's the end of TV as we know it,
    And I feel fine.

    -- with my apologies to R.E.M.

    TV Guide bought out by a fan-driven wiki site? Death of (linear) TV confirmed. And not a decade too soon.

    I mean, TV Guide was like the phone book. Every house had it (or nearly every, some just used the TV schedule on the local paper). But, point is -- for 5, almost 6 decades it was a fixture.

    Now it's just a fossil. If I'm supposed to feel nostalgic.. I'm not.

    • I bought a copy on eBay for a particular cover recently and man is it wild looking at the listings inside. The channels are "crazy" because it's a Chicagoland printing. Lots of UHF. My market as a kid was almost all VHF.

      • Lots of UHF

        My home market was Puerto Rico.

        The UHF stuff was.... well, a lot like youtube, I guess. A cross of Community Access, and outright conspiracy peddlers / snake oil peddlers. I don't even remember the names. I didn't go UHF often. Usually when smashed out of my gourd.

        Our VHF was.. well, unique. Joyful day, the first time we got cable and access to mainland TV.. you haven't lived unless you've heard "No Luke.. YO soy tu padre!" "NOOOOOO!"

        When did it all go bad? 90's? 00's? It was the 00's, wasn't it..

        x

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It allowed the proto incel culture to schedule their week. The TV guide was critical at keeping a generation of would be criminals at bay

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by colfer ( 619105 )

      I read it for the articles.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      TV Guide bought out by a fan-driven wiki site? Death of (linear) TV confirmed. And not a decade too soon.

      Erm... you've only just figured out broadcast TV is dying. I knew that 17 years ago.

      Like radio, it's in its death throes as we're literally just waiting for the last users to die. Streaming services came in and took over years ago to get the laggards that hadn't figured out how to download what they wanted to watch. Just about everyone from the BBC to Disney now offers on demand content.

      Unlike radio that received a short reprieve by being available in the car, TV's death will be far shorter, not unexp

  • This TV Guide that you speak of what is it?

    • the button marked guide on the remote

    • This TV Guide that you speak of what is it?

      Last 3 digits of userid checks out ;o) Forgot already?

      Yeah, so had I. I'm kinda shocked TV Guide was still a thing.

      Oh, I remember where I last saw it! 4 years ago, the Comcast DVR I had, the "guide" page was branded "TV Guide." Before I cut the cord, thus contributing to TV's still-accelerating demise.

      Was it still a paper rag tho? I haven't seen it on the checkout at the grocery in forever.

  • In 2021, Fandom acquired Fanatical

    Ah, I forgot about that, it would explain the sudden rash of far more expensive games bundles and lack of good value bundles.

  • Who thought you can make millions by channeling the energy of thousands of obsessive nerds and selling ads. Ford Prefect is out of a job.

  • Fandom is Wikimedia's commercial arm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:38AM (#62935927)
    They might be legally separate, but spiritually they are the same, with most of the same people. Not many people know it, but fandom exists to monetize formerly ad free Wikipedia content that is arbitrarily declared "not notable" and is put on ad laden fandom wikis instead. Remember that when Wikipedia starts begging for money again.

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