Reverse Acquisition: Renowned Digital Consumer Site CNET Sold for a Measly $100 Million to Its Former Acquisition

Today, Red Ventures, the parent company of the famed digital consumer website CNET, announced the sale of the site to Ziff Davis, a digital media and internet company that owns well-known tech sites like IGN.

CNET, a household name in the industry, has seen a decline in recent years, marred by an overabundance of advertisements and its use of AI-generated content, which led to its inclusion in Wikipedia's list of unreliable sources.

Ironically, back in 2000, CNET had acquired the tech giant Ziff-Davis and ZDNet (another industry-renowned tech site) for $1.6 billion—a staggering amount 24 years ago.

Over the past two decades, through several asset divestitures and restructurings, Ziff Davis was spun off from CNET, becoming an independent company, leading to today's acquisition of CNET by Ziff Davis.

Once a titan, CNET is now considered to have been sold off cheaply, with the selling price hovering around 100 million. CBS Corporation had acquired CNET for 1.8 billion in 2008, and Red Ventures purchased it for $500 million in 2020.

Each sale saw a significant slashing of CNET's price, and the industry's perception of CNET has increasingly soured, primarily due to the production of unreliable content via AI.

Since January this year, Red Ventures began seeking a buyer for CNET, and Ziff Davis emerged as the unexpected acquirer. The company believes CNET remains a well-known industry brand capable of attracting advertisers, though they did not specify whether the use of AI-generated articles would continue.