McClatchy/Knight-Ridder Deal: More Than Newspapers

Media coverage surrounding McClatchy’s recent acquisition of Knight-Ridder has understandably focused on the 32 newspapers included in the deal.

However, a significant (and relatively under-publicized) aspect of the purchase is Knight-Ridder’s various online ventures. McClatchy inherits Knight-Ridder’s diverse interests in several online advertising and publishing sites. One agency executive valued Knight-Ridder’s Internet investments at more than $1 billion.

The Knight-Ridder digital holdings include:

• Partial ownership of careerbuilder.com, a leading site for employment listings (this wasn’t part of the acquisition, but McClatchy is reportedly pursuing it pending approval by the site’s other shareholders)
• A news aggregator site, topix.net
• Knight-Ridder’s share of Classified Ventures (which includes cars.com and other sites)
• The Real Cities Network, consisting of nearly 100 newspaper sites across the country
• Knight-Ridder digital, which coordinates digital assets for its newspapers

Any acquisition brings its share of operational hurdles, but the online challenges seem especially complex. Will McClatchy integrate Knight-Ridder’s technology infrastructure and online newsgathering? How will national and local online advertisers be affected? What happens to the sites of 12 Knight-Ridder newspapers that will be immediately sold by McClatchy? It’ll be interesting to follow these developments in the upcoming months.