Rumors have been swirling that Univision has been looking to sell off its assets. More specifically, the company is supposedly looking to sell off the recently acquired Gawker properties after the main branch was renamed to Gizmodo.
According to the New York Post, Univision has confirmed that they are looking to sell, but there’s no guarantee that there will be a sale.
The New York Post quotes the company as saying that it has…
“initiated a formal process to explore the sale of the [digital] assets.”
New York Post lists the following properties under Univision’s label:
- Gizmodo,
- Jezebel,
- Deadspin,
- Lifehacker,
- Splinter,
- The Root,
- Kotaku,
- Earther,
- Jalopnik,
- The Onion,
- Clickhole,
- The A.V. Club
- The Takeout.
This comes just two years after Univision purchased Gawker and rebranded it as the Gizmodo Network for $135 million back in 2016 after Gawker got body-slammed and leg-dropped in a lawsuit by WWE Hall of Famer, Hulk Hogan.
Things haven’t been going so well for Univision, however. The company was supposed to have its IPO go live this year but it was staved off due to low income from the Gawker assets and internal strife and low morale from staff.
Back in April of 2018 the Gizmodo CEO stepped down, while the rest of the Univision executive branch began laying off staff in order to trim some of the operating fat.
Trying to attain profitability has been difficult for Univision due to the fact that a lot of readers have actively been boycotting some of their brands, including but not limited to Jezebel, Kotaku, and Gizmodo. Just recently Kotaku was one of many outlets to misreport on a widely talked about firing that took place at ArenaNet, forcing more people to abandon the outlet and call them out for unethical reporting. This kind of agitprop-journalism has been going on for more than four years now, and was the target of the consumer revolt known as #GamerGate, which aimed to improve ethics in media journalism.
It looks like it won’t be lasting much longer unless a buyer comes in and saves the Gizmodo brand from going under.
(Thanks for the news tip Paul)
