Consumers Union’s new non-profit subsidiary Consumer Media LLC launches on Jan. 1 with newly acquired Consumerist.com as its only property but the announcement release stressed that it’s the first. Does this mean more acquisitions are on the way? “The short answer is we don’t know,” Ken Weine, VP-communications, told us. “We may down the road acquire or create new items.” Consumer Media is viewed as a way to expand the nonprofit’s consumer advocacy mission and to take advantage of a growth spurt in recent years. 

SEE ALSO: Consumers Union To Buy Gawker’s Consumerist.com

For now, the new subsidiary sets boundaries between Consumerist, acquired this week from Gawker Media, and CU’s Consumer Reports magazine and website. “The message we’re trying to project—and the reality will reflect this—is we’re not purchasing Consumerist to make it into Consumer Reports and we wanted for that, among other reasons, to structurally create some distance between the two.” 

More after the jump...