What's Online: CBS Has a Crush on Wallstrip
WHY would CBS want to buy the stocks-oriented video blog Wallstrip? After all, the network exited the online-business-news business when Dow Jones purchased MarketWatch.com in 2004. Is this just a case of a stodgy old-media company trying to hang out online with the cool kids?
Context & Ripple Effects
The deal itself is already done — Howard Lindzon confirmed on May 22 that CBS closed its purchase of Wallstrip, days after a Jossip report flagged the acquisition and the awkward economics behind it (the online-profit headache). What the New York Times adds is the strategic puzzle: CBS walked away from online business news back in 2004 when Dow Jones bought MarketWatch.com, so buying a scrappy stocks video blog looks less like re-entering that market than renting credibility with an audience it cannot build in-house.
The move fits the strategy Les Moonves laid out in early 2006 — distribute entertainment, news and sports everywhere and get paid for it — which CBS has already tested by selling Survivor episodes directly from its own site at $1.99 apiece. Lindzon's own framing of the sale, that you can make money from blogging, is the seller's thesis; the Times' 'crush on the cool kids' framing is the skeptic's.
First-order effects
- Lindzon and Wallstrip's backers exit with a sale to a major network, converting a low-cost web video show into a realized payoff for the video-blogging model.
- CBS gains a finance-oriented web-native show and its built-in audience without rebuilding a business-news operation of MarketWatch scale.
Second-order effects
- Other networks watching the price tag now have a template: acquire small personality-driven video brands rather than funding original online newsrooms from scratch.
- Web video producers gain a new class of buyer — legacy broadcasters hunting for audiences — which shifts bargaining power toward creators with proven niche followings.
Third-order effects
- If broadcast networks keep buying micro-brands instead of building portals, the unit of media M&A shrinks from whole websites to individual shows and their hosts, making talent retention — not traffic — the asset that has to be locked down.
- It marks a second attempt by CBS at business news online, but through rented voices rather than owned infrastructure — a structure that succeeds or fails on whether the personalities stay.
The trend: Legacy broadcasters are shifting from building large online news properties to acquiring small web-video brands outright, paying for audiences they cannot grow organically.