Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, has acquired Microsoft’s 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for $300 million, according to “people with knowledge of the transaction,” reports The New York Times.
The URL now redirects to NBCNews.com. However, MSNBC.com will return early next year as the online home of the MSNBC cable channel.
Microsoft sold its share of the MSNBC cable channel in 2005, but kept 50 percent control of the online news site. This deal created advertising problems between the two entities, as they could not sell shared advertising to interested parties.
The sale will allow MSN to feature stories other than MSNBC content. “Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn’t have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted,” explains Bob Visse, MSN general manager.
“Most interestingly, though, Microsoft plans to strike out on its own this fall with original online reporting,” reports The Verge. “Visse told the AP that MSN will be building a brand-new news team of approximately 100 journalists, or roughly the same size as the original group of reporters behind MSNBC.com at its launch in 1996.”
Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, has acquired Microsoft’s 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for $300 million, according to “people with knowledge of the transaction,” reports The New York Times.
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