Gawker Media

Gawker Media LLC
Formerly
  • Blogwire, Inc. (2003–04)
  • Gawker Media, Inc. (2004)
Company typePrivately held company
FoundedOctober 9, 2003; 21 years ago (2003-10-09)
FounderNick Denton
Defunct21 September 2016; 8 years ago (2016-09-21)
(12 years, 11 months and 12 days)
FateFiled for United States Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and Liquidation; acquired by Univision Communications; sold to Great Hill Partners
Successors
Headquarters
New York City
,
U.S.
Key people
Subsidiaries
Websitegawker.com

Gawker Media LLC (formerly Blogwire, Inc. and Gawker Media, Inc.) was an American internet media company and blog network. It was founded by Nick Denton in October 2003 as Blogwire, and was based in New York City. Incorporated in the Cayman Islands,[1] as of 2012, Gawker Media was the parent company for seven different weblogs and many subsites under them: Gawker.com, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel. All Gawker articles are licensed on a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license.[2] In 2004, the company renamed from Blogwire, Inc. to Gawker Media, Inc., and to Gawker Media LLC shortly after.[3][4]

In 2016, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection[5] after damages of $140 million were awarded against the company as a result of the Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit.[6] On August 16, 2016, all of the Gawker Media brands, assets except for Gawker.com, were acquired at auction by Univision Communications for $135 million.[7] Two days later on August 18, the company announced that Gawker.com would cease operations the following week, while its other sites will continue to operate.[8]

On September 21, 2016, Univision moved all of the Gawker Media properties to their newly created Gizmodo Media Group.[9][10]

Gizmodo was subsequently acquired by Great Hill Partners along with The Onion in 2019 under the G/O Media Inc. umbrella, reportedly for less than $50 million.[11][12][13]

  1. ^ Gardner, Eric (February 19, 2014) "Gawker to Quentin Tarantino: We're Safely Based in the Cayman Islands" Archived 2020-05-23 at the Wayback Machine, The Hollywood Reporter. (Retrieved 3–5–2014.)
  2. ^ "Using Gawker Media Content". Legal.Kinja.com. Gawker Media. Archived from the original on 2014-02-23. Retrieved 2014-02-12.
  3. ^ "Informational Message". Corporation and Business Entity Database. Archived from the original on November 25, 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  4. ^ "Informational Message". Corporation and Business Entity Database. Archived from the original on November 24, 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  5. ^ "Gawker Media Chapter 11 Petition" (PDF). PacerMonitor. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
  6. ^ Ember, Sydney (2016-06-10). "Gawker Said to Plan Sale After $140 Million Award to Hulk Hogan". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-06-10.
  7. ^ "Univision to Buy Gawker Media for $135M". The Hollywood Reporter. 16 August 2016. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  8. ^ Trotter, J.K. "Gawker.com to End Operations Next Week". Gawker.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-18. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  9. ^ Spangler, Todd (September 21, 2016). "Univision Hires News Corp's Raju Narisetti to Oversee Sites Acquired From Gawker Media". Variety. Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  10. ^ Jarvey, Natalie (21 September 2016). "Univision Hires News Corp Vet to Lead Former Gawker Media Sites". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  11. ^ Rana, Akanksha; Sharma, Vibhuti (8 April 2019). "Great Hill Partners buys Gizmodo and The Onion from Univision". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Archived from the original on 6 November 2019. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  12. ^ Mullin, Benjamin (8 April 2019). "Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group". wsj.com. Wall Street journal. Archived from the original on 5 November 2019. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  13. ^ "Gizmodo Media Group is sold to a private equity firm, and Univision is out of the English-language website business". Archived from the original on 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2020-07-28.