In early August, The New York Times Co. was on the edge of selling About.com to Answers.com for $270 million. Now, the property is going to Barry Diller's Internet media conglomerate InterActiveCorp (IAC) for $300 million in cash, the New York Times announced Sunday evening.
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Citing unnamed sources, both AllThingsD and the Times reported ahead of the announcement that IAC made a "surprise bid" last week, after news broke that the NYT Co. was planning to sell About.com to Answers.com.
The About Group was largely responsible for revenue declines at The Times Company last quarter. The company reported an operating loss of $143.6 million that quarter, after taking a $194.7 million non-cash writedown for the About Group. Falling display and cost-per-click advertising revenues at the Group also led overall declines in print (-8%) and digital (-4%) advertising across the company.
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The Times bought About.com for $410 million in 2005. Like Demand Media, it depends primarily on search to generate traffic.
IAC owns and operates a number of Internet companies, including Ask.com, Match.com and Newsweek/The Daily Beast.
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This story originally published on Mashable here.