In some ways, it’s a merger of equals, but equals going in different directions.  Newsweek has been losing money and market share for years, culminating in a humiliating $1 sale to Sidney Harman in August.  The Daily Beast, a high-profile web venture launched and owned by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp, has 5 million uniques per month, but is essentially brand-new and has no real reputation.  Now, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have hitched their wagons together via a 50/50 merger.

“Some weddings take longer than others,” said current Daily Beast and future Newsweek Daily Beast Company editor-in-chief Tina Brown,in a Daily Beast blog post.  “Working at the warp speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print.  And for Newsweek, The Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.”

Yeah, good luck with that.  The first thing they need to do is change the name.  Newsweek Daily Beast Company is as bad as AOL Time Warner.  They should embrace the NewsBeast!  After that, you cross-post Daily Beast content to Newsweek and vice-versa.  Then you wait for the profits.

Tags: Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Tina Brown, Newsweek merges with The Daily Beast, print media merges with online media, unusual mergers, website merges with newspaper, Newsweek Daily Beast Company, Barry Diller, InterActiveCorp, IAC, Sidney Harman

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]