Revision3-Discovery Deal Not Likely to Go Down
Revision3 is a veteran independent broadcasting site that shares some common ground with Hulu, with the exception that the startup produces and streams its own content. Web users are showing their appreciation with over 100 million views every month, and they’re also clicking more ads than ever – revenue increased by 53 percent in 2011, according to Revision.
This makes the company a potentially very strong acquisition target, and that’s the rumor Eric Eldon picked up this week. Citing his sources, Eldon says that Revision3 has been involved in acquisition talks for the past couple of weeks, and an agreement may be signed in a matter of days. Surprisingly it’s the The Discovery Channel that is supposedly displaying all this interest, which is likely to pay anywhere between $30 million to $40 million, according to the same sources.
“The company reported ad-based revenue growth of 53% in 2011 — albeit with no hard numbers disclosed — and a video view increase of 359%, to 800 million views. It also grew its YouTube subscriber base to more than 4.5 million people over the same period, a four-fold annual gain.”
But our own sources tell us that this Revision3- Discovery deal is probably exactly what it says in this description – just a rumor. This adds up with prior knowledge of the company, which hasn’t been acquired in its seven years of existence in spite of steady growth (unless you count this April Fool’s video announcement from 2008 stating that it has been acquired by Fox News–a response to an earlier claim that pointed at none other than CNET).
Discovery would do well to expand its online portfolio of content providers, but until we hear otherwise, this one’s still in the rumor pile.
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