San Francisco (CA) - CBS Corp today announced that it has agreed to buy online media conglomerate Cnet for $1.75 billion, highlighting a trend of big TV networks expanding their presence in the online world.

CBS will buy all shares of the publicly traded Cnet for $11.50 each.  That's a 45% premium over yesterday's closing price of $7.95.

The broadcasting company said the purchase will make it one of the ten most popular online companies in the US, as determined by monthly unique viewers.

CBS will add Cnet's online properties, including News.com, TV.com, MP3.com and Gamespot, to its existing Internet arsenal of CBS.com, CBSSports.com and CBSNews.com.

"There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks," said CBS CEO Les Moonves in a statement.

As the entertainment medium is expanding further and further away from traditional print and broadcast formats, media companies have been rushing to the Internet to claim a stake there.

Fox's parent company News Corp acquired online destinations Myspace and IGN over the past few years.  NBC has also aggressively grown in the online market by co-founding sponsored online video site Joost, and ABC offers high-definition video streaming of many of its first-run TV shows directly from its website.

It is unknown yet what administrative changes Cnet is likely to see.  The deal is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of this year.

fire gerstmann!

May 15, 2008 17:12     

maybe somebody fired gerstmann to revolt users to lower gamespot revenues and make the buyout cheaper for cbs! [paranoic_conspiracy_mode=off]
nke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

I hope this corp doesn't do something like fox done to myspace

May 16, 2008 06:03     

try to copy other websites and fail so hard that it pisses so many people off, they all goto the website its trying to copy erm I Hope not because I use download.com, tv.com and gamespot.com a lotttttttttttt
meow report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0