Jossip is reporting that corporate focused video blog WallStrip has been acquired by CBS News for $5 million. The report states that an announcement is expected early this week and involves WallStrip host Lindsay Campbell being the next Amanda Congdon for CBS, fronting online shows.
I spoke to some one close to the deal who confirmed Jossip’s story. The deal is said to be focused on signing Lindsay Campbell. CBS was keen to have Campbell on board and a cast iron contract meant that acquiring WallStrip was the only way they could get to her.
WallStrip as a video blog/ show has previously met with mixed reviews. The dry topics and patchy scripting being pulled off only by the shining talent of Campbell. As a deal it has a sense of “What The?” about it. My source says the company has zero revenue. Campbell has talent but if this was the driving reason behind the buy, they’d better hope she can tap dance as well.
Update 5/22: the acquisition is now confirmed publicly by an investor. Price was not disclosed.
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I wonder why they wouldn’t just sign her up and pay less for that.
Congrats goes out to Wallstrip. Quincy Smith was serious when he said “(On the Web) we aren’t just competing with Fox, we are competing with LonelyGirl15″ (at EconSM conference).
Having come out of the videoblogging community, I am glad that the independent vloggers are starting to get the attention that they deserve for the great content coming out of the space.
http://lindsaycampbell.com/
To be honest,
The show wouldn’t have been good - Lindsay. She is awesome and have some great skills as a presenter. The entire show focused on some qualitative analysis and has been a good starting point for many people outside the world of finance. They find it entertaining, the concept and the presentation very unique. About the revenue model I have no clue. But definitely with the resources, CBS can turn it around. They paid for the concept and definitely for the people. Congrats for the team and its wonderful exit.
“…and involves WallStrip host Lindsay Campbell being the next Amanda Congdon”
hopefully they’ll do better than a tight-sweater model giggling (and bouncing) for lonely male bloggers, who then flames out when reaching an audience not composed strictly of single males between 23 and 45.
i would have thought mainstream media would have digested congdon’s story as a cautionary tale, not something to repeat.
and who *watches* news videos? online video is for porn, amateur comedy, and other edgy content. i can read an interview transcript in 10% of the time it takes these annoying videos to play out
just another big retarded company flushing millions away on online guesses.
This is the silliest guess at the motive behind CBS’s purchase of Wallstrip, if it’s even true. CBS would never buy a company in order to secure a contract with a host. They’d just hire the host if that’s what they were after.
Lindsay has a B.A. from Stanford University in dance. I bet she can tap dance!
I think Comedy Central missed an opportunity here. A Wallstrip segment with Lindsay would have made a great addition to the Daily Show.
Bubble, bubble…
This is a ridiculous price & purchase.
It is very interesting the kind of reviews companies get here from Micheal and his “cronies”. Regardless of CBS acted in this matter. Acquiring talent at any means is what make great companies.
Dont believe me, remember a month after confabb.com was launched, Micheal was talking (maybe he was paid to do this, who knows) about confabb in acquisition talks when the site was barely doing 1k visitors. How do you explain that.
If CBS acquired wallstrip, then great 4 them. Its about talent, which it seems some of you lack on here.
Just my 2 cents.
Alia
that’s what my source gave me, is it questionable as a motive? yes, but no more so than acquiring a video blog with zero revenue for $5m. Campbell at least sounds more logical.
Rons
I’ve never been called a crony before, lol. For the record though there was no editorial interference in this post, I wrote it as I saw it and based on my discussion with a source, end of story.
What? Why would they buy this?
DR: from the looks of things, Wallstrip was started in October of 2006. Wallstrip appears to have lots of eyeballs and eyeballs=potential revenue, no? So, seeing as this whole online video revolution is really in it’s infancy, seems like the smartest thing CBS could do would be to snap up the content producers who are the generating the most views and buzz while making the highest quality shows. Looks like a freaking great investment to me.
I love Wallstrip, but its not that difficult to do a little bit of high level analysis on companies with a good sense of humor. Its a little harder to get access to key execs or hedge fund traders, but is also replicable. If Lindsay is “the” personality that can carry out such an assignment while drawing lots of eyeballs then more power to her - like Diane Sawyer and 20/20 - but it can become commoditized very quickly with competitors squeezing potential advertizing dollars.
this is a good article. interesting that they’re building a deal around a personality. I think that is a smart move. I don’t know who the girl is but it’s not easy to entice CBS, even with how sometimes clueless some of the old school companies are with internet ideas.
cool!
Wallstrip long, CBS short!
I hope they treat and respect her originality well, so she can stay with us loooooong.
http://www.gossipfriends.net/?q=wallstrip
Bought for $5M…wilson invested $500K and got a 10x…10 x $500,000 = $5M.
Doubtful Wilson bought 100% of the company, so either Wilson invested at a $500K valuation and got a 10x or Wilson invested $500K and didn’t get a 10x.
@Duncan: Don’t feel the trolls. Rons’ company obviously never got covered at TC. It’s a regular routine, people who companies didn’t get covered, trying to raise doubt about TC’s credibility.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I can’t believe the professional world is so unprofessional.
I don’t know. I think we should all be encouraged by things like this. I see everybody nitpicking about numbers, but the reality is, consolidation is a good thing for most of us (since most own or invest in start ups here). If something small is getting serious money, it’s all about the piece in the puzzle that it fits - that means opportunity for the rest of the market.
I’m not going to complain. If CBS wants to pay a fortune for a site that everybody seems to think is crap, there is hope for us all.
From Fred Wilson:
“I did not invest $500k into Wallstrip. The Gotham Gal and I did put some money into it but it was an order of magnitude less than the number that’s being reported.”
A couple of comments:
- congrats to Howard, Lindsay, Fred, Adam, Jeff. This wasn’t just Lindsay but, from my perspective, a real team effort of creativity and talent.
- Lindsay is great on Wallstrip but there is also a non-stop demand for good quality video content in the financial space. The audience is the several hundred million people worldwide who own US stocks. CBS, which used to be the proud owner of “cbs.marketwatch.com” back in the day, probably wants to get back into this.
- I think the way a company like CBS values this is not based on trailing revenues but based on the question “if we take their current views, assume we can at least double them, and slap one ad on every one of those pages, can we do an accretive deal?” My guess is this deal is MASSIVELY accretive to CBS
- even aside from that (since accretive in this sense is a speck of dust for CBS) my guess is they want to use the creative talents of Wallstrip to make a real online video platform. Particularly given the recent investment in Joost.
Once again, congrats to everyone, particularly CBS.
I dont understand who your insider is. Fred Wilson says the he was just part of a gropup of angels. Also, wher are the mixed reVIEWS (learn to spell).
I would think that a site that promotes Web 2.0 could appreciate the quick and hard work needed for a great exit (if that’s what this rumor is), instead of a personal rant on what you dislike.
Why cover it if it is so unimportant.
Shoddy wriring for Tech Crunch.
I’m embarrassed for TechCrunch:
1) Your source has male thongs on the site
2) Your number is wrong
3) Your understanding of Fred’s investment amount and return is wrong
4) Your analysis of WHY the deal occurred is wrong
Basically, instead of investigating HOW this startup went to buyout within 6 months, you took the easy road and decried how dumb the deal was for CBS…as if they have been duped.
Readers here are mostly startup people, who would enjoy both FACTS and analysis of what led to the success….instead of blathering on about how CBS needed an actor who was on Sopranos for 20 seconds last night so bad that they forked over $5 million to get her.
What next, you gonna report that HBO was offering her $3.5 million?
Credit goes to the founder, Howard Lindzon AND the team he put together…all the way from talent (which was huge) to studio (best independents in the biz) to investors and blogger involvement.
TC should be embarrassed for this thinly veiled hit-piece…..and might try talking to someone involved in the deal or waiting for it to actually close next time instead of this juicy tidbit of misinformation.
Duncun Riley has a problem with some of the people at WallStrip. He shouldn’t have been allowed to write this story as it’s basically just a bunch of biased crap.
heh Duncun - Does seem a little slanted - although I dont know your history (if any ) with this company
-RB
Who is that wonderful source with bad info by the way.
Where are the MIXED reviews. I just went to their site and saw them on ABC news and two great reviews in Business week and New York times.
I guess CBS should be chomping at the bit to have you handle internet direction.
5 mill is chump change 4 WallStrip, blue sky, & Lindsay Campbell and gang. CBS moved just as the stuffed shirt crowd were distancing themselves from the ‘mirror’.
Cowardly article that doesn’t even pass the smell test
Fred Wilson, the person mentioned in the article completely demolishes this article. TechCrunch has fallen to a new low. TC has no credibility left.
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007.....e_sto.html
“I am not commenting on the rumors about Wallstrip being acquired. I guess time will tell if they are accurate or not.”
Read: They did NOT sell it! Mistake #1.
“I did not invest $500k into Wallstrip.”
Mistake #2.
“In addition, I have not, did not, and will not negotiate with anyone to sell the company.”
Mistake #3.
TC completely missed out on this one. The article should be pulled.
And Michael Arrington is comparing TC to WSJ?!
CBS paid $5MM for Wallstrip and techcrunch says…
“Campbell has talent but if this was the driving reason behind the buy, they’d better hope she can tap dance as well.”
How much did CBS pay for Katie Couric?! She can’t tap-dance and ratings are down. I think this $5MM investment makes sense if they can replace Couric on the cheap.
I’ve seen everyone of their vlogs - discovered it early and damn glad I did.
It’s a winner. The next Amanda Congdon? No, she’s the first Lindsay Campbell, backed by a very creative team.
Gotta love the techcrunch-is-soooo-dead bandwagon.
Unclear facts are PRECISELY why something is called a rumor. And should I even say getting stuff wrong while reporting a rumor is common.
I do think Duncan should fix the 10x return bit. Little silly:)
This post is a disaster of inaccuracies. It’s relying on an obviously confused source at a mediocre gossip site (not even a GOOD gossip site) called Jossip. Pretty much every concrete fact is inaccurate or outright wrong. Fred Wilson clears up the inaccuracies himself on his blog.
This should be either pull or heavily edited.
So where are you Arrington? At least the WSJ runs retractions.
I wonder if it’s really worth $5mm. Compare that to the $5bb for the Wall Street Journal for really boring, yet profitable content. I remember the days when people paid for profits, after the first bubble but before the second
I have some additional commentary, of course…
http://www.capitalai.com/blog/.....ree-world/
As someone who writes an investment blog for a living and knows a little about the business side of blogging/video blogging, I have to agree with all those that are criticizing Tech Crunch. It isn’t easy to do what Wall Strip has done, combining intelligent investment selections with funny, humorous content to backstop the information and give it more life.
Frankly, for all but the very passionate, investing is more boring than watching paint dry. Congrats to Howard for understanding this. I say the Wallstrip team continues to do what they’ve been doing but to a larger audience. We should all be so lucky.