Condé Nast passed on a deal to buy The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard from Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries — but did buy CitizenNet, a social data and marketing platform.
Terms of the deal for Los Angeles-based CitizenNet, headed by CEO Dan Benyman, were not disclosed.
Condé Nast and THR/Billboard had engaged in talks last fall but those talks collapsed in December over price, according to a report.
It is not entirely clear if the talks between the two will resume, according to CNN Money, which first reported on the negotiations, but The Post has independently confirmed that they are most assuredly dead.
Although Condé still derives most of its revenue from print magazines, such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, the New Yorker and Glamour, most of its recent acquisition activity has been in digital media.
In 2015, it bought the indie music site Pitchfork. Recently, Condé said it was spinning off a new site from Pitchfork, called October, that is aimed at the independent beer brewing industry.
October is an effort in partnership with the venture arm of Budweiser parent, InBev. The aim is to do for independent brewers and their customers what Pitchfork has done for the indie music scene.
Last year, Condé also bought the tech business title, Backchannel, from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and his partner Steven Levy, a one-time Wired writer who returned to Condé with the Backchannel deal.
On its acquisition of CitizenNet, the New York publisher said it would be combined with Condé Nast Spire to expand the audience targeting capabilities beyond the company’s owned and operated sites to social platforms.
Condé claims to have 174 million followers on social media.
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