AllThingsD Editors Are Said to Complete NBCUniversal Deal
AllThingsD editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, who are leaving News Corp. at the end of the year, completed a deal with NBCUniversal for a news and conference business that will bring their current staff to a newly named website …
Context & Ripple Effects
The move has been building for weeks: on November 21, reports surfaced that NBCU might invest in the AllThingsD journalists, and Mossberg and Swisher's exit from News Corp. at year-end was already confirmed. What Bloomberg now adds is the destination — a completed deal with NBCUniversal covering both the news operation and the lucrative D conference business, with the current staff following to a newly named website.
For NBCUniversal, this is a second swing at rebuilding its digital news presence after the Microsoft divorce that forced MSNBC.com's rebrand to NBCNews.com in 2012 — this time buying an established tech-media franchise rather than building one. For News Corp., it closes out a property licensed from Dow Jones since 2007 whose value turned out to live mostly in two bylines.
First-order effects
- Mossberg, Swisher and their staff leave News Corp. at year-end for an NBCUniversal-backed company on a newly named site — though the deal itself remains 'said to be' done, not officially announced.
- News Corp.'s tech coverage and the D conference franchise walk out the door together; the license arrangement ends rather than renewing.
Second-order effects
- Competing tech outlets lose their most reliable source of exclusive executive interviews on stage, since the D conferences' draw — Mossberg and Swisher's access — transfers wholesale to the new venture.
- Other media companies face a fresh proof point that star journalists can take staff, audience and event revenue to a new corporate backer, raising retention stakes for branded editorial franchises everywhere.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the unit of value in tech media is the journalist-owned franchise rather than the masthead: investors like NBCUniversal buy into people and their conference economics, not publications — a structure that makes future splits between owners and bylines cheaper and more likely.
The trend: Tech media is shifting from masthead-owned franchises to personality-led ventures backed by outside investors, with conferences as the revenue engine that travels with the founders.