Gawker Sells Consumerist and Plans to Sell Defamer

Posted on December 31, 2008

Gawker's Consumerist blog has been sold to nonprofit Consumers Union. Gawker Media's Hollywood gossip blog Defamer is also up for sale. The Gawker blog network has been steadily shrinking since last year. There's no official word on how much Consumerist was sold for but Peter Kafka at Media Memo says he's been told mid-six figures.

Denton wouldn't comment on the sale of Consumerist, an advocacy site with attitude that he put on the block last month. And he would only confirm that Defamer, his attempt to break into Hollywood coverage, is for sale.
But I'm told that Consumerist may have fetched something in the "mid-six figure range," and that a logical buyer for Defamer would be BuzzNet, the pop culture blog network that picked up Denton's Idolator music site earlier this year.

Consumerist never seemed like the kind of blog that could attract lots of advertising so it seems appropriate that it was sold to the company behind the subscription Consumer Reports publication. Some commenting on a Consumerist post about the sale sound concerned the Consumerist blog itself could go subscription but Consumer Reports has a number of blogs on its website (see here) that are available free to the public so Consumerist is probably safe from subscriber fees for now.