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Again, and Again and Again: Jupitermedia Changes Its Name To WebMediaBrands

Rafat Ali — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:01:39 +0000

Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) is trying the Nth time on whether a name change will make it more relevant in the digital media world: after the completion of the sale of its online images business to its larger rival *Getty Images* for $96 million in October last year, the company’s assets now include online publishing and media brands, and hence another name change is in order, as CEO Alan Meckler decided against his on-and-off pet Internet.com this time.

The company will now be called

How Credit Crunch Shaved At Least $45 Million Off Jupiterimages’ Sale To Getty Images

Rafat Ali — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:16:50 +0000

When Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) sold off its online images business to its larger rival Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) for $96 million in October, some people considered it second-time lucky for the company: Jupiter tried to sell its whole business to Getty in early 2007, but it fell apart then. But the latest sale was not without hitches, and in fact the credit crisis that ballooned in September-October may have shaved almost $40 million to $45 million off the final deal price, based on the deal proceedings disclosed in JUPM’s PREM14A filing late last week. And while the back and forth is hard to summarize, some key points:

– Back in March 2007, when the first talks were held, Getty discussed buying its images business for about $388 million, but the talks were terminated soon after.
– A year later, talks started again with Getty as well as three or four other bidders. And in April this year, a bidder came in with “verbal non-binding indication of interest” to acquire the images business for approximately $185 million, the filing discloses.
– Merrill Lynch was retained as the banker from Jupitermedia’s side; they approached Getty again after two other parties became interested. Around May, Hellman & Friedman Advisors, the PE firm that was in the process of buying Getty, indicated a deal could be done around the $200 million range.
– Tons of back and forth among all bidders and JUPM over the next few months. JUPM had a chance to potentially sell the business at around $145 million to Getty if it entered into a 45-days exclusivity period starting early August, but it didn’t, and continued talking to others. Some bidders wanted to buy pieces of the images business for between $65 million and $90 million…some of these deals were also contingent on the bidders getting funding from other PE firms.
– As the market continues to worsen, the bid price went lower, on Sept. 24, Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images, communicated to Meckler that they were reducing the price to $120 million, “based on the state of the credit and acquisition finance markets.”
– On Oct 16, Getty went as low as $75 million, “citing difficulty in securing borrowed funds under Getty Images

Earnings: Jupitermedia’s Losses Balloon; Online, Images Revenue Down

Tameka Kee — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:35:31 +0000

Online media and images company Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) had a poor Q3, with revenues down 13 percent year-over-year and losses that shot up. Revenues came in at $31 million, down from $34.8 million in Q307, dragged down by slumps in its two core divisions. Online images revenue was down 12 percent, from $26.8 million in Q307 to $23.4 million. But the company won’t have to worry about that much longer, as it sold its online images division to Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) in late October. The plan is to devote more attention to its stable of online properties like Mediabistro.com — which didn’t fare much better in Q3: Revenues came in at $7.5 million, down five percent from $7.9 million in Q307. Meanwhile, losses topped $22.6 million, up sharply both from Q2 and the previous year.

Release

Second Try Proves Lucky: Getty Buys Jupitermedia’s Online Images Unit For $96 Million

David Kaplan — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:06:32 +0000

So the second time proves to be lucky: Jupitermedia has sold its online images business to its larger rival Getty Images for $96 million in cash. The first time Getty (NYSE: GYI) tried to buy JUPM’s images business, in February 2007, the deal fell apart. This new deal is centered on a definitive stock purchase agreement, and Alan Meckler, Jupitermedia’s chairman and CEO, and others, who collectively hold about 35.9 percent in Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM), have agreed to vote in favor of the deal. Meckler said the deal will allow the New York-based company to pay off all its bank debt.

Jupiter’s images division had revenues of $8.9 million in the last reported quarter (Q208), and operating profits of $7.2 million.

Getty itself is now a private company, after it was bought by PE Firm Hellman & Friedman for $2.4 billion earlier this year.

In the meantime, Meckler said Jupitermedia will focus more on developing its online media division. That unit is comprised of five distinct networks: internet.com and EarthWeb.com, which are aimed at IT professionals; DevX.com for developers; and Mediabistro.com and Graphics.com for media and creative professionals. Earlier this year, Jupitermedia began pushing the music side of its business hard with a number of acquisitions, including eStockMusic, a royalty-free music site, and Flying Hands Music, which also has its own library of royalty-free tracks. Release

10-Q Watch: Jupitermedia-MediaBistro; Scripps Interactive; Lee Enterprises, Classmates.com

Joseph Weisenthal — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:49:09 +0000

– Jupitermedia: In its 10-Q, the stock photo and online media company, says its MediaBistro unit did revenue of $2.3 million in the latest quarter, and $4.4 million in the first half. Based on the $5 million in revenue the company did in the second half of last year, the unit now has trailing revenue of $9.4 million. So while MediaBistro continues to grow, Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) is warning about ad spending at its other media properties, due to slower spending from tech company advertisers. Excluding MediaBistro, the media business had Q1 revenue of $6.6 million, down from $7.3 million a year ago. Also, on the earnout, looks like MB is hitting it: Besides the $20 million in cash, Jupitermedia had to make a payment of additional $3.0 million based profit targets achieved by MB for the period from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008; and for the period from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. Based on MB’s results until June 30th this year, Jupitermedia has recorded a liability of $900,000, which means that’s the amount it will pay sometime in the near future.

– *Scripps* Interactive: The company’s 10-Q breaks out online ad revenue at the unit: “We continue to successfully develop our network brands on the Internet. Online advertising revenues were approximately $20.1 million in the second quarter of 2008 compared with $19.3 million in the second quarter of 2007. Year-to-date online advertising revenues were $36.4 million in 2008 compared with $34.7 million in 2007.”

– Lee Enterprises: The newspaper company has the distinction of being among the few media companies that saw an online ad decrease during Q208. Online advertising at Lee decreased $1,467,000, or 9.1 percent, on a same property basis. Online retail advertising grew strongly, but online classified advertising was negatively impacted by declines in print classified advertising.

– United Online: The company still has some hopes for a Classmates.com IPO… United Online (NSDQ: UNTD) canceled its IPO plans in December last year, due to what it termed as market conditions. Of course they are much worse now, but the company’s 10-Q says: “While it still remains the Company’s strategy to complete an IPO of CMC, because the Company believes that capital markets have not improved significantly since the CMC Form S-1 registration statement was withdrawn in December 2007 and there is limited visibility as to when capital markets might improve significantly, the Company has concluded that it is unlikely that an IPO will be completed before 2009. As such, the Company determined, on June 23, 2008, that the $3.9 million in deferred transaction-related costs relating to the IPO would be expensed in the quarter ended June 30, 2008 and the Company’s financial results and the financial results of its Classmates Media segment for the quarter and six months ended June 30, 2008 were negatively impacted.”

Earnings: Jupitermedia Ekes Out Higher 2Q Revs But Swings To Loss

Staci D. Kramer — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:27:16 +0000

Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM), the online media and images firm, reported slightly higher revenues of $35 million for Q208, compared with $34.6 million last year, but still wound up in the red. It losses shot up, to $3.28 million, compared to a small profit of $386K in the year-ago quarter. Revenues from its online images business decreased to $26.09 million, from $27.28 million in the year-ago quarter, On the online media side, it had a surprising increase, to $8.9 million, up from $7.28 million in the year-ago quarter, likely the result of Mediabistro contribution. Earnings release

10-Q Watch: Mediabistro’s Q108 Revenues: $2.2 Million

Rafat Ali — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:39:00 +0000

We have previously reported on Jupitermedia’s (NSDQ: JUPM) Q108 revenues, as well as its subsidiary Mediabistro’s full year 2007 revenues. Now in its latest quarterly 10-Q, filed yesterday with SEC, some data point on MB’s latest revenues: it had $2.2 million in revenues for Q108; it added $269K to advertising, promotion and selling expense; and added $311K to general and administrative costs for the company. All of this was partially offset by reduction in advertising revenues due to a decline in advertising spending by technology companies (for the online media division of JUPM).

Earnings: Jupitermedia Misses on Revenues; Losses Increase

Rafat Ali — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:14:00 +0000

Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM), the images and online media company, has reported its Q108 earnings, and revenues for the quarter were down slightly, to $34.5 million, compared to revenues of $34.8 million for the year ago quarter. The net losses increased to about $1.1 million, from losses of about $728K in the year-ago quarter. Its revenues on the online media side (which includes Mediabistro now) increased to $8.4 million for the quarter, compared to $6.85 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenues for its images business decreased to $26.14 million, compared to $27.9 million in the year-ago quarter. More details in release here.

10-K Watch: Jupitermedia: Mediabistro: $7.8 Million In ’07; 37 Percent Growth

Joseph Weisenthal — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:15:00 +0000

We previously estimated that Mediabistro, the media info and resources service acquired by Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) last year, was on track to do about $8 million in revenue for 2007. It looks like that was right around the mark, as in fact the final number came in at $7.8 million, per the company’s 10-K just filed today. Last time, the calculation required multiple steps and involved some guesswork. This time it was pretty straightforward.

Total Jupiter revenue for the year was $140.3 million, and the filing says that Mediabistro contributed $3.6 million of this, from the time it was acquired last June. That means Jupiter, ex-MB did revenue of $136.7 million. Another chart gives the company’s full-year revenue as if it had Mediabistro for the entire year — $144.5 million — so the difference, $7.8 million is what the standalone Mediabistro did for the year. Same deal for 2006 gets you $5.7 million and a year-over-year growth rate of 37 percent. That’s slightly the 38.9 percent last quarter (our original estimate assumed steady growth, so that explains a little bit of the gap).

Earnings: Jupitermedia Q4 Revs Up 4 Percent; Online Media Up 20 Percent

Joseph Weisenthal — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:28:00 +0000

Stock photo and online tech media firm Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) has announced Q4 revs of $36.1 million, a percent year-on-year increase from $34.7 million. Net loss expanded to $77.3 million from $76.7 million, although both quarters included significant impairment charges. The company’s modest top-line growth game from its online media (non-images) business, which was up over 20 percent to $9.3 million. The core images business slipped to $26.8 million, from $27.1 million. For the coming quarter, Jupiter is predicting revenue of $35-$36 million and net income of $.3 million. Release.