Washington Post Buying Slate
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Washington Post Company, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper and Newsweek magazine, agreed to buy Microsoft Corporation’s Slate online magazine, a provider of commentary on news, politics, and cultural events.
Terms of the acquisition won’t be released until the purchase is completed in January, a Washington Post spokeswoman, Rima Calderon, said in a telephone interview.
Slate, the money-losing online magazine published by Microsoft since June 1996, has 6 million users and contributors including Christopher Hitchens and staff writers such as Fred Kaplan. Founded by Michael Kinsley, a former host of CNN’s “Crossfire” television show, Slate’s audience resembles that of other Washington Post publications, the Washington Post said.
“A big goal of ours was to be consistently profitable and at the moment we’re not profitable,” said the editor of Slate since April 2002, Jacob Weisberg, in a telephone interview. “With the Washington Post we’re likely to see advertising figures improve.”
Shares of the Washington Post rose $26.95 to $960.01 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Microsoft shares rose 12 cents to $27.07 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.
Mr. Kinsley’s idea in publishing Slate “was to experiment with journalism on the Internet and to see what kind of magazine he could create,” Mr. Weisberg said. Slate developed from an online weekly magazine to a daily edition with a focus that expanded from politics to include general news and articles on art, movies, books, shopping, food, and wine.
Mr. Weisberg will remain editor, and Slate’s business operations will be run by Washington Post’s Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. A vice president and general counsel of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Cliff Sloan, was named publisher. Slate offices in New York and Washington will be maintained.
“Slate fits well with our other media properties and our audience,” Washington Post’s Ms. Calderon said.
Microsoft has sold many of the content businesses it created in the late 1990s to develop Web sites that would appeal to Internet users and compete with Yahoo! and America Online. Microsoft instead is depending on partners such as News Corporation’s FoxSports and General Electric’s CNBC to provide news and information for its MSN Web sites.
“MSN’s focus is on the big categories of interest and we take more of a massmarket approach to general news, sports and entertainment, while Slate is more of a niche market,” said the general manager of Microsoft’s MSN Network Experience, Scott Moore. “We never monetized Slate to the level it deserved so six months ago we decided to find a buyer.”
Microsoft sold its Sidewalk city guides in 1999 to rival CitySearch, now owned by InterActiveCorp Online travel service Expedia was spun off in 1999 and sold to InterActiveCorp. in 2002. Microsoft still owns the MSNBC TV news and Web site joint venture.
Mr. Weisberg in a letter posted on Slate yesterday said some of the online magazine’s employees, particularly those based in Redmond, Wash. will leave the company. These include Cyrus Krohn, the outgoing publisher, who was Slate’s first employee, and more than a half-dozen staffers. The magazine has about 30 full-time staff and as many as 15 contributors.
Slate had 6 million users last month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Slate will be available to users on Microsoft’s MSN service through a separate agreement with Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and Microsoft.
Slate and its online rivalSalon.com, founded in November 1995, are credited as being the first online magazines. Both survived the slump in demand that hurt other Internet publications.
“Our goal was to find out what works in Internet journalism and we didn’t go through the boom-and-bust-cycle that hurt other publications,” Mr. Weisberg said.