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Ziff Davis history
Ziff Davis company history timeline
Ziff, who had been an aviator in World War I, created Popular Aviation in August 1927 that was published by Popular Aviation Publishing Company of Chicago, Illinois.
When Davis graduated in 1927 he joined Ziff as the editor of America's Humor.
The company histories normally give the founding date as 1927.
Under editor Harley W. Mitchell it became the largest aviation magazine, with a circulation of 100,000 in 1929.
These were started by Hugo Gernsback but sold as a result of the Experimenter Publishing bankruptcy in 1929.
The title was changed back to Popular Aviation in July 1930.
However, it was not until 1936 that the company became the "Ziff-Davis Publishing Company". (Popular Aviation, April 1936, was the first issue by Ziff-Davis Publishing.) Davis was given a substantial minority equity interest in the company and was appointed a vice-president and director.
Davis was a photography enthusiast and the editor of the Popular Photography magazine started in May 1937.
Both magazines had declined since the bankruptcy but the resources of Ziff-Davis rejuvenated them starting with the April 1938 issues.
In early 1938, Ziff-Davis acquired the magazines Radio News and Amazing Stories.
In 1953, the company mostly abandoned comics, selling its most popular titles—the romance comics Cinderella Love and Romantic Love, the Western Kid Cowboy, and the jungle adventure Wild Boy of the Congo—to St John Publications.
Ziff Davis first started technology-themed publications during 1954, with Popular Electronics and, more briefly, Electronics World.
In 1958, Bernard Davis sold Ziff Jr. his share of Ziff Davis to found Davis Publications, Inc.; Ziff Davis continued to use the Davis surname as Ziff-Davis.
In 1958, Ziff-Davis began publishing a magazine, HiFi and Music Review, for the growing hobby of high fidelity equipment.
In 1969 Ziff formed the Ziff Communications Company and made Ziff-Davis one of its divisions.
In 1979 he spent $89 million to purchase Rust Craft Greeting Cards Incorporated for its six television stations, but within a few years he sold them for $100 million, saying that television was not the "turn-on" he had hoped for.
In 1979, Ziff Davis expanded into broadcasting, after an acquisition of television stations originally owned by greeting card company Rust Craft.
Similarly, another new Ziff venture at this time was the 1980 acquisition of Information Access Company (IAC), a pioneer in electronic publishing and one of the first companies to produce databases on CD-ROM, including Magazine Index, National Newspaper Index , and Trade and Industry Index.
1981: Ziff completes its first foray into computer magazines, with launch of PCjr.
The titles included Business & Commercial Aviation, Hotel & Travel Index, Travel Weekly, World Aviation Directory, and the flagship of the group, Meetings & Conventions, which by 1983 generated $12 million in annual revenues.
Many in the industry were surprised, then, by the October 1984 announcement that Ziff was placing 24 magazines up for sale, 12 in its consumer group and 12 in its business group.
By 1984, many of these magazines were the circulation and/or revenue leaders in their respective markets.
How closely the fortunes of the company were tied to his involvement is evident from the company's struggles during these years: 1985 saw the company post a loss of $10 million on $100 million in revenue.
Following the 1994 breakup, it focused on its technology publications and the ZDNet online content site. It started out publishing specialty consumer magazines and then branched out into business niche publications, before refocusing on the computer magazine niche following the 1985 divestments.
Ziff had acquired Government Computer News in 1986 and invested heavily in it, but finally surrendered to IDG and its competitive title when it sold the magazine to Cahners Publishing.
In 1989, the company initiated the ZDNet site.
First, to lessen reliance on the United States market, Ziff launched an ambitious line of European computer magazines early in 1991.
By 1991, PC Magazine boasted a circulation of more than 800,000, more than $160 million in advertising revenue, and a ranking as the tenth-largest United States magazine.
In 1991 it acquired Predicasts Inc., whose databases included PROMT , a competitor of IAC's Trade and Industry Index.
In 1991 ZDNet on CompuServe and on the early Internet were augmented by the purchase of Public Brand Software, the main shareware disk provider.
The latter was launched with great fanfare early in 1992 and positioned as the one magazine for executives needing to make computer purchases.
1993: Ziff, Jr., retires; Eric Hippeau takes over as chairman.
Before it was acquired by CNET, ZDNet was Ziff-Davis's online service and Internet portal. It began accepting advertising in April 1995.
Operating earnings increased to $190 million in 1995 from the $140 million figure of the previous year.
Ziff-Davis continued to thrive under its new ownership, with the company producing three of the top four publications in high-tech ad dollars in the first nine months of 1995: PC Magazine, PC Week , and Computer Shopper.
Softbank was the leading distributor of computer software in Japan and had augmented its computer trade show unit with the purchase earlier in 1995 of Comdex, the industry's largest trade show.
In 1995 it initiated the magazine Yahoo! Internet Life, initially as ZD Internet Life.
Before it was acquired by CNET, ZDNet was Ziff-Davis's online service and Internet portal. It was launched in 1995 and hosted electronic editions of Ziff-Davis's magazines.
The purchase price was $2.1 billion, with the deal, completed in February 1996, providing Forstmann Little with a hefty profit on a less than 18-month investment.
1996: Ziff-Davis Publishing is sold to Softbank.
For 1996 ZDNet had revenue of $10.2 million.
In 1997 technology media company CMP Media launched a competing site, TechWeb.
OPM had begun in 1997.
Giebons, Kent. "Allen's 'World' Keeps Expanding." Multi-channel News, November 23, 1998.
During 1998 Ziff-Davis's magazine operations suffered from a combination of factors that cut into ad revenues: fewer new computer product introductions, computer industry consolidation, and the Asian economic crisis, which dampened computer sales in that region.
When ZDNet was spun off from Ziff-Davis at the end of March 1999, it was losing money and contributing about 2 percent of its parent company's revenue.
With Softbank wishing to shift its focus completely to the Internet, Ziff-Davis announced in July 1999 that it was exploring strategic options, including a possible sale of the company.
He shut down the short-lived Expedia Travels and Sm@rt Partner (the latter having been launched in 1999 as Sm@rt Reseller ) and merged Interactive Week into eWeek.
But in July 2000 Ziff-Davis, which in essence at that point consisted only of ZDNet, agreed to be purchased by ZDNet's arch-rival, CNET Networks Inc., for $1.6 billion in stock.
Later in 2000 the company launched The Net Economy, a monthly magazine targeted at business and technology managers at companies that provide network-based services.
Toward the end of 2000 it established an office in Miami, Florida, as a base for expansion into Latin America.
Since 2000 Ziff Davis Media has been wholly owned by Ziff Davis Holdings Inc., a publicly traded holding company majority owned and controlled by Willis Stein & Partners, L.P., a private equity investment firm.
Content was taken from Ziff-Davis titles, including eWeek (formerly PC Week ) and PC Magazine. It launched ZCast.tv, a streaming video news and analysis Web site, in February 2001.
In May 2001 Ziff Davis Media announced it would lay off 50 employees, or about 5 percent of its workforce.
The deep downturn, which affected both ad spending and circulation figures, claimed its first Ziff Davis victim in July 2001 when Family PC was shut down.
The second victim was a more surprising one—Dunning himself, who was ousted in August 2001.
Restructuring and asset-impairment charges of $277.4 million, mainly related to the magazine closures, contributed to a net loss of $415.4 million on revenues of $215.9 million for the nine-month transition period ending in December 2001.
By July 2002 the firm verged on the edge of bankruptcy.
As the ad recession continued in 2002, so too did Callahan's restructuring.
Under existing agreements, ZDNet owned the exclusive online rights to those magazines' content through 2003.
Late in 2003 Ziff reentered the conference business through the acquisition of TM Media, which formed the basis for the newly created Ziff Davis Event Marketing Group.
Finally, in October 2004, Ziff Davis Media acquired Connexus Media Inc. (CMI), a business-to-business online publishing company based in Topsfield, Massachusetts.
Also launched in 2004 was ExtremeTech , a newsstand-only magazine aimed at the hardcore technology do-it-yourselfer.
Since 2004, Ziff Davis has annually hosted a trade show in New York City known as DigitalLife.
In November 2006, Ziff Davis announced the cancellation of Official PlayStation Magazine.
In July 2007, Ziff Davis Media announced the sale of its enterprise (B2B or business-to-business) division to Insight Venture Partners.
On January 6, 2009, the company sold 1UP.com to UGO Entertainment, a division of Hearst Corporation and announced the January 2009 issue of the long-running Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine as the final one.
In June 2010, Boston private equity firm, Great Hill Partners, purchased Ziff Davis, with online media executive Vivek Shah.
On November 12, 2012, Ziff Davis Inc., was acquired by cloud computing services company J2 Global of Hollywood, California, United StatesA. for $167 million cash.
On November 16, 2012 Great Hill sold the company to j2Global, a provider of cloud services.
In November 2013, Ziff Davis acquired TechBargains.com, a deal aggregation site for consumer electronics.
The purchase price was $175 million, approximately 2.9 times the estimated 2013 revenue. j2 Global actually paid $167 million in an all-cash deal.
In December 2014, Ziff Davis acquired Ookla, owner of Speedtest.net.
In December 2015, Ziff Davis acquired Offers.com an online source of offers, deals, coupons, coupon codes, promos, free trials, and more.
In December 2017, Ziff Davis acquired Mashable, an American entertainment, culture, tech, science and social good digital media platform, for $50 million.
The magazine celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2017.
In 2018, Ziff Davis had 117 million readers, reaching 115 countries with 60 international editions.
In September 2019, Ziff Davis acquired Spiceworks, a professional network for the information technology industry.
In November 2020, Ziff Davis acquired RetailMeNot for $420 million, an aggregator of coupon offers across multiple website properties.
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Ziff Davis competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDG | 2001 | $240.0M | 3,500 | - |
| Electronic Arts | 1982 | $7.6B | 9,800 | 140 |
| Take-Two Interactive Software | 1993 | $5.3B | 6,495 | 59 |
| Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences | 1996 | $5.0M | 23 | - |
| MarketResearch.com | 1998 | $33.7M | 100 | - |
| Advertising Specialty Institute | 1950 | $15.0M | 200 | 31 |
| Best Version Media | 2007 | $5.0M | 1,735 | 7 |
| McClatchy | 1857 | $709.5M | 2,800 | 71 |
| UBM Enterprise | 1992 | $37.0M | 3,891 | - |
| USA TODAY Sports Images | - | $7.1M | 124 | 2 |
Ziff Davis history FAQs
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Ziff Davis may also be known as or be related to Ziff Davis, Ziff Davis Publishing, LLC, Ziff Davis LLC, Ziff Davis Inc, Ziff Davis, LLC and Ziff Davis, Llc.