Apollo Global Management, a private equity group, could have a deal for acquire Verizon Media as early as Monday. Bloomberg says Verizon would “keep a stake in the business.” Verizon Media includes venerable brands like Yahoo!, TechCrunch, Rivals, Autoblog, Engadget and AOL. The entity also operates Flurry, a mobile app analytics organization.
Recently, Verizon Media launched its Next-Gen Solutions suite. They describe it as a “first-to-market offering for advertisers and publishers independent of cookies or mobile app IDs for audience creation, buying or measurement.” This is in preparation for a cookie-less and indentity-less future. This new solution uses content and other real-time data signals like weather, location and device type to connect relevant advertising with consumers.
Verizon Media had already sold off HuffPost to BuzzFeed and Tumblr to WordPress in recent years. You may recall Verizon dubbing their media division “Oath” in the mid 2010s. That was under former Googler Tim Armstrong and a promise of connecting 1 billion+ users with advertising.
Bloomberg says Verizon Media was Q1 revenue of $1.9 billion, an increase of +12% YOY. The Financial Times notes that other telecom companies have sought success in content. For example, AT&T acquired Time Warner for $85.4 billion.
