Nine to buy out Microsoft from nineMSN joint venture
Nine is to buy out Microsoft to take 100 per cent ownership of nineMSN and the rest of joint venture Mi9, the company has announced.
The move by Nine Entertainment Co comes ahead of its planned listing on the ASX later this year.
Mi9, headed by CEO Mark Britt, began as Ninemsn in 1997 as a partnership between Nine’s former owner Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd and Microsoft.
I worked at NineMsn for three years and never once saw anybody from Microsoft venture into the place. Somebody once described the revenues it made Microsoft as “loose change behind the couch in comparison to its other businesses.” So in terms of a JV they were definitely the benign partner and couldn’t imagine they’d be overly fussed.
Not a big surprise. MSFT no longer dumps in eons of impressions from hotmail. MSFT no longer have ad tech worth mentioning.
How long before Bauer take the lifestyle sites “In House” – That would severely dent the audience numbers across the network, surely they didn’t buy ACP for $600m to let someone else monitise the websites forever? – And it won’t be long before digital specialists sit in the Ch9 GSM teams working on the bigger NEC properties… what would that leave to sell?
I worked at ACP in 1997 when ninemsn was 1st created, and have often wondered if all of the money spent on the JV over the years had been invested in 1st class editorial teams and systems within ACP and Channel 9 to create great digital properties, how much further would they be ahead?
@ Matt B… spot on, mate. NineMSN have about as much interest in quality content/editorial as Tony Abbott does in the union movement.
No mention of the 20 odd commercial staff that Mi9 laid off on Friday either…
about bloody time. this JV didn’t help either company. sure it got a lot of default traffic from ms properties but it was like an airport – people rushing through on their way to somewhere else.
It’s such a mysterious company. Like does anyone really look at their website’s other than for webmail or mistakenly going there for one of Bauer’s mag titles? Channel 9 should take back its digi properties and Bauer back its mag sites and be done with it.
Will Hotmail still sign out to the ninemsn site? If not, I imagine Nine will have a big challenge on their hands.
As for the Seven/Yahoo! site – does seriously anyone look at this??