Media General Purchases Richmond.com

[Sonny Banks]

"Media General, an independent communications company and parent of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has purchased Richmond.com for an undisclosed amount of money.

Richmond.com is an Associated Cities member and considered one of the most complete geo-domains ever created. The website has 120,000 unique monthly visitors who average nearly 2.7 million page views each month. By partnering with local businesses and organizations, Richmond.com is able to act as a local hub for local news, events, and searches".

http://www.domainnamenews.com/miscellaneous/media-general-purchases-richmondcom/3067

 

[DomainsInc]

Cool, would be nice to have a range at least.

 

[Onward]

Wow...a true end user...I guess...

I would say mid 6 figures?

 

[HuntingMoon]

from our experience, when a buyer really really wants a particular geo domain- they will stop at nothing to get it.

 

[vip]

I'm guessing more than $1 mill.

 

[DNP]

mid-high xxx,xxx IMO

 

[Yum]

1M and above i think.

 

[dn-101]

$7 to $10 mil

 

[wussadotcom]

2 Million I would say. Not to mention the traffic flow value.

 

[radioz]

Media General is a big publishing group especially here in Virginia where they own, probably most, quantity wise anyway, daily papers. In our local area (Charlottesville), they own the metro daily and all of the metro area county weekly papers too. Only the two competing arts papers are not under their control. In some areas, they even own the arts papers.

In Richmond, they changed their old newspaper site to 'InRich.COM' to set up a total Richmond landing site last year. I doubt that it exactly killed an established site with a name like 'Richmond.COM'. I also suspect that they want to see what they can do on line with a 'real' dedicated site as something of an experiment. Richmond is Media General's hometown and it's no secret that their income is floundering. Their own paper here in our market has fairly regular articles about their sagging profits on the business page.

 

[simon johnson]

Richmond is a pretty generic place name. While I believe that the whole "local search" thing has merit, it still comes down to population.

 

[Deleted member 70408]

Richmond is a pretty generic place name. While I believe that the whole "local search" thing has merit, it still comes down to population.

I disagree. While I probably would choose a large city .com name over a small town, the population isn't the biggest factor. If you don't want to become a news outlet with reporters, editors, and other overhead, you need to consider where you will generate revenues, and a considerable amount comes from hotel and real estate advertising. Vacation and seasonal towns with small populations can kill some larger city names. I would trade Burbank.com (pop > 100k) or Lowell.com (pop > 100k) for Aspen.com (pop 15k) or PalmBeach.com (pop 10k).

If I were to guess, Richmond.com business sold for much more than most estimates here. It's THE name for Media General's primary target audience, it has tremendous traffic (uniques/returning), and they have a loyal user base evidenced by their impressions/uniques. With the amount of advertisers Richmond.com already has, it must have been an enormous deal to sell.

 

[NURCA]

From what I've heard from locals in my area (I live 30 min from Richmond) the deal
exceeded 1m. I think it was much higher. Richmond is a very popular place in Virginia and alot of history and businesses as well.

 

[joezeppy]

It's certainly known around the country. It doesn't seem like a real "destination" type city but probably has a lot of history. I have to start to post more around here. I've been a member a long time and just haven't been involved here. It looks to be very well run.