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Verizon Media

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Verizon Media
Formerly
Oath Inc. (2017–2019)
Subsidiary
Industry
Predecessor
FoundedJune 13, 2017; 20 months ago (2017-06-13)
Headquarters
New York City, New York and Sunnyvale, California
,
U.S
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
K. Guru Gowrappan (CEO)
Brands
Services
Number of employees
14,000 (2017)[2][3]
ParentVerizon Communications
Websiteverizonmedia.com

Verizon Media (previously named Oath Inc.) is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications that serves as the umbrella company of its digital platforms. The name "Oath" was chosen to convey its commitment to the digital media business upon its founding in June 2017,[2] although it was ultimately rebranded as Verizon Media in January 2019.[4]

The company was originally created after Verizon, which had acquired AOL on June 23, 2015,[5][6] purchased Yahoo!'s operating business on June 13, 2017 and merged the two businesses together.[7] Within Verizon Media, AOL and Yahoo! maintain their respective brands.[8] In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down $4.6 billion (about half) of the value of the combined AOL/Yahoo purchases.[9]

Operations[edit]

Verizon Media is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. The company maintains dual headquarters at the former AOL and Yahoo! headquarters buildings in Manhattan, New York, and Sunnyvale, California.[10] As of December 2018, the company employed about fourteen thousand people.[11]

History[edit]

Verizon announced a $4.4 billion deal to acquire AOL in May 2015.[12] The deal was an effort by Verizon to expand its technology and media offerings.[12] The deal officially closed a month later.[6][12]

A year after the completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo!'s core internet business, looking to invest in the internet company's search, news, finance, sports, video, email and Tumblr products.[13] Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major Internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers.[14] As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $350 million to $4.48 billion.[15]

The AOL deal and subsequent Yahoo purchase were led by Verizon's management team, including Lowell McAdam (CEO), Marni Walden (EVP Product) and Tim Armstrong.[9] Walden had been tasked with merging the two entities and delivering on the promise of moving Verizon from an analog to digital platforms business.[16] Walden exited Verizon in 2017 and as later events revealed, the integration did not deliver the expected value.

Oath logo, 2017–2019

Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under the Oath umbrella.[17] The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched.[18] Upon completion of the deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned.[18] Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets are its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan.[18] After the merger, Oath cut fifteen percent of the Yahoo-AOL workforce.[2]

In April 2018, Helios and Matheson acquired the movie listings website Moviefone from Oath. As part of the transaction, Verizon took a stake in Helios and Matheson stock.[19][20]

In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath apps onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones.[21] The agreement includes Oath’s Newsroom, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and go90 mobile video apps (closed in July 2018), with integration of native Oath ads into both the Oath apps and Samsung’s own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps.[22][23]

On September 12, 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1.[24]

On December 3, 2018, the company declared a new set of rules for the Tumblr community that will take effect December 17, 2018, banning "adult content". This move has raised objections that it harms their LGBTQ community, sexual abuse survivors, sex workers, adult content blogs, and other bloggers.[25][26] The move came after the Tumblr app was removed from the Apple App Store due to issues with child pornography,[27] leading some to speculate that the ban may have been made to regain access to the App Store.[28]

In December 2018 Verizon announced that it was cutting 10% of Oath's workforce[29] and would write down the value of the business by $4.6B. Verizon management blamed competitive pressures and that the business never achieved the anticipated benefits.[30] The move wiped out all of the goodwill on the balance sheets that accompanied the acquisitions.[9]

Oath was renamed Verizon Media on January 8, 2019.[31]

Brands[edit]

Some of the digital brands under Verizon Media include:[32]

Divested[edit]

Verizon has partial ownership of Moviefone's parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc.

Discontinued[edit]

AIM and Yahoo! Messenger were superseded by Yahoo Together, which in turn will be shut down April 2019.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hackett, Robert (3 August 2016). "Read What Yahoo Is Telling Employees About the Verizon Deal". Fortune.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Todd Spangler (June 19, 2017). "Brent Corley Unveils Oath: AOL-Yahoo Combo Is as Big as Netflix and Looking to Expand". Variety. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  3. ^ Lomas, Natasha. "Latest round of Verizon layoffs at Oath affects <4% of staff globally". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  4. ^ "Oath is now Verizon Media". Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  5. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (23 June 2015). "Verizon completes its acquisition of AOL for $4.4B". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  6. ^ a b Snider, Mike (23 June 2015). "Verizon completes AOL acquisition, readies mobile video service". USA Today. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  7. ^ Goel, Vindu (13 June 2017). "Verizon completes $4.48 billion purchase of Yahoo, ending an era". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  8. ^ Chokshi, Niraj; Goel, Vindu (2017-04-03). "Verizon Announces New Name Brand for AOL and Yahoo: Oath". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  9. ^ a b c Spangler, Todd (11 December 2018). "Verizon to Take $4.6 Billion Charge for Oath, Wiping Out Nearly All of Yahoo-AOL Unit's Goodwill Value". Variety.com. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  10. ^ Schubarth, Cromwell (14 June 2017). "Confirmed: Combined Yahoo, AOL cutting 2,100 jobs". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  11. ^ Spangler, Todd (19 June 2017). "Tim Armstrong unveils Oath: AOL-Yahoo combo is as big as Netflix and looking to expand". Variety. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  12. ^ a b c DiChristopher, Tom (23 June 2015). "Verizon closes AOL acquisition". CNBC. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  13. ^ Goel, Vindu (25 July 2016). "Verizon announces $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo's internet business". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  14. ^ Goel, Vindu; Perlroth, Nicole (14 December 2016). "Yahoo says 1 billion user accounts were hacked". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  15. ^ Fiegerman, Seth (21 February 2017). "Verizon cuts Yahoo deal price by $350 million". CNN. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  16. ^ O'Reilly, Lara (25 July 2016). "This woman has been given the job of merging Yahoo with AOL". Business Insider. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  17. ^ Chokshi, Niraj; Goel, Vindu (3 April 2017). "Verizon announces new name brand for AOL and Yahoo: Oath". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  18. ^ a b c "Verizon closes Yahoo deal, Mayer steps down". Reuters. 13 June 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  19. ^ Smith, Gerry (April 5, 2018). "MoviePass Acquires Moviefone to Bolster Film-a-Day Service". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  20. ^ "MoviePass Just Bought Moviefone. Here's What It Means for Moviegoers". Fortune. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  21. ^ Karl Bode (4 May 2018). "Verizon Brings Its Oath, Yahoo Bloatware to Samsung Phones". DSLReports.com. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  22. ^ Chaim Gartenberg (2 May 2018). "Verizon is putting Oath bloatware like Go90 on its Galaxy S9 phones". The Verge. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  23. ^ Garett Sloane (2 May 2018). "Verizon Uses Mobile Might to Get Oath Apps Onto Samsung Phones". AdAge. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  24. ^ Brian Fung (12 September 2018). "Verizon says Oath CEO Tim Armstrong is stepping down". The Washington Post.
  25. ^ Ho, Vivian. "Tumblr's adult content ban dismays some users: 'It was a safe space'". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  26. ^ Kelly, Heather. "How Tumblr's adult content crackdown could alienate users". CNN Business. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  27. ^ Porter, Jon. "Tumblr was removed from Apple's App Store over child pornography issues". The Verge. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  28. ^ Roettgers, Janko. "Tumblr to Ban All Adult Content". Nasdaq. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  29. ^ Byers, Dylan (14 December 2018). "Verizon plans to cut 10 percent of Oath staff". NBC News. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  30. ^ "Verizon will write down $4.6 billion in value of Oath, the unit that combined AOL and Yahoo assets". Business Insider. 11 December 2018. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  31. ^ "Oath is now Verizon Media". Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  32. ^ "Oath brands". June 16, 2017. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
  33. ^ "Verizon is shutting down its original video app Go90". 2018-06-28.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verizon_Media&oldid=888553429"