What price friendship
ITV, the company which bought Friends Reunited for £120 million in 2005, has sold it to DC Thomson, publisher of The Beano, for just £25 million.
When ITV bought the site four years ago, director Jeff Henry said "The acquisition of Friends Reunited is a key step in the delivery of our strategy to drive new revenue streams for the company." But the site has shown little, if anything, in development and innovation since its hugely successful early days, and despite dropping its annual membership fees and being the subject of a TV advertising campaign, it has faded out of the media limelight, being replaced by the likes of Facebook and MySpace. Let's hope DC Thomsom makes a better job of it.
It is not just ITV that is finding that funding websites through advertising is not as lucrative as many imagine. In the wake of a £203 million loss this year, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corp intends to start charging subscription fees for access to its online versions of The Sun and The Times by June of next year. Where News Corp leads, other players in the industry are liable to follow, possibly with relief in the case of some of the smaller organisations struggling with the current market models. Whether or not it will go through with this plan remains to be seen, and if it does, will it be a genuine source of new revenue, or will we find that people prefer paper once they have to pay for it?
26th August 2009