Filed under: News
Two major providers of online content geared toward African Americans have merged, looking to become a force in the increasingly competitive black-centric media space.
TheGrio.com and
NewsOne.com, through a partnership between their parent companies,
NBC News and
Interactive One, have joined forces to combine their respective editorial and sales resources.
"We now have a bigger pool to play in," said
David Wilson, the founder and managing editor of TheGrio. Wilson, who founded TheGrio in 2008 and then merged it with NBC in 2009, said the agreement is mostly about sharing sales and marketing resources. But it will also help bolster their editorial muscle and allow them to share content across a number of platforms.
According to
a report in the New York Times, comScore numbers from May 2010 to May 2011 show the total audience for TheGrio grew 300 percent, to 1.3 million viewers from 319,000. NewsOne also grew significantly during that same period, increasing its viewership to 881,000 from 356,000.
Based on comScore measurement, the combined net audience of NewsOne and TheGrio was 2.1 million in May, up from 661,500 from the previous year, according to data released by Interactive One.
"No disrespect to your colleagues over at BlackVoices," he said during a phone interview this morning, not long after the official announcement was made, "[but]we look to become the online destination for African Americans."
The alliance brings together TheGrio, the spunky upstart, and a host of popular Interactive One properties including Black Planet, NewsOne.com, TheUrbanDaily.com and HelloBeautiful.com.
"They are basically offering a more robust sales proposition, bigger audiences and the opportunity to get ads in front of more eyeballs," said Steve Capus, the president of NBC News,
in a press release announcing the partnership. "We instantly grew the business as a result of this partnership."
But TheGrio and its new partner have some stiff competition for the black audience.
There's
TheRoot.com, a site published by The Washington Post and headed by Henry Louis Gates, and AOL Black Voices, which recently became part of the Huffington Post Media Group. According to comScore.com, Black Voices had 1,625,000 unique visitors in April, up from 1,316,000 in March.
The newly formed alliance between TheGrio and NewsOne hopes to crank things up during the 2012 presidential election, which is sure to draw huge interest from the black community. According to the New York Times report, TheGrio will coordinate the sharing of content among the sites and NewsOne will handle the advertising sales efforts, a critical part of the merger.
But for Wilson, who has watched his little website grow into a formidable player on the ethnic-oriented Web landscape, the alliance is more than just business; it's the fruit of love and labor.
"It feels good to have a small idea that you had in your head to be validated, not just by the growth of traffic, but to have people who want to partner and become a part of it," Wilson said. "When you work for a traditional news company you're dealing with general news. As an African American its good to focus on stories that your community is interested in. And it really makes a difference by being able to highlight some of the stories that are the most important and relevant and sometimes the most entertaining."
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