UK’s Guardian News & Media buys American online content company ContentNext

The Guardian News & Media (GNM) yesterday announced the acquisition of ContentNext, publisher of media and technology business blog paidContent.org, a sign of the growing importance of such sites to traditional media companies. The latter has an India connection in that it operates contentSutra.com targeting this region.

Its founder and editor, Rafat Ali, and CEO, Nathan Richardson, will continue to run the company as a stand-alone business. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ContentNext, based in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, is an online media hub delivering high-quality professional news, information and analysis to executives in the media, entertainment and technology sectors.

Its publishing network comprises the flagship paidContent.org, providing global coverage of the business of digital content; mocoNews.net, covering the business of mobile content, paidContent.UK, focusing on the UK and Europe. The company also runs a complementary events business bringing together business decision-makers and thought-leaders.

The move marks a major step in London-based Guardian News & Media's expansion outside of the UK. In the last nine months it has launched Guardian America, offering news and comment to a US audience, and forged a new commercial relationship with Reuters to sell advertising in the US.

And it has not been alone in diversifying its interests beyond its core competencies. In recent times several leading media conglomerates have paid increasing attention to online content, and spent considerable sums in converting these interests into assets. See: Media giant CBS acquires Internet content firm CNET for $1.8 billion and  News Corp's Fox Network to launch Latin American online advertising network

GNM, which publishes two leading UK newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, and the guardian.co.uk network of websites, also owns a B2B division, Guardian Professional, providing publications, events and conferences to professional audiences in its core sectors of media, education, and the public sector. ContentNext will form part of the Guardian Professional group.

Tim Brooks, managing director of GNM, said, "We have long been admirers of Rafat and the business he has built, which is an indispensable resource for so many senior people in our industry. So we are genuinely excited at the prospect of being able to help Rafat, Nathan and the team take ContentNext to the next level."

"I have admired paidContent for years. Rafat and his team personify the values of editorial independence and integrity that are core to the Guardian. I'm very happy to welcome the company into the expanding Guardian Media Group," commented Carolyn McCall, CEO of Guardian Media Group.

GNM is one of the five units of the Guardian Media Group (GMG), the other four being GMG Regional Media (Manchester Evening News, other local newspapers in the North West and South of England, Manchester Online, Channel M), GMG Radio (regional radio stations under the Smooth, Real, Century and Rock Radio brands), Trader Media Group (the Auto Trader magazine and website), which it owns jointly with private equity firm Apax), and GMG Property Services Group (software providers Vebra and Core, and consumer portal ThinkProperty.com).

Rafat Ali said, "The Guardian's international reputation for editorial integrity and digital innovation make it the perfect partner to help ContentNext to grow its expanding platform."

Nathan Richardson, CEO of ContentNext, added, "The strategy and ambitions of the Guardian are a terrific fit for ContentNext's plans to be the leading digital publishing platform for news and information to the media, entertainment and publishing industries."