Ziff Davis

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Ziff Davis Media
Type	Privately Held, formerly public company.
Founded	1927
Headquarters	New York City, Woburn, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California
Key people	Jim Louderback Senior VP
Industry	Magazine Publishing/Internet Information Provider
Products	Magazines, Websites, Podcasts, Video Podcasts
Revenue	$187.6 million (2005)
Employees	~500
Parent	Ziff Davis Holdings Inc.
Website	www.ziffdavis.com

Ziff Davis Inc. (ZD) is an American magazine publisher and Internet Information company. It was founded in 1927 in Chicago by William B. Ziff, Sr. and Bernard G. Davis. Throughout most of its history, it was a publisher of hobbyist magazines, often ones devoted to expensive, advertiser-rich hobbies such as cars, photography, and electronics. However, since 1980 onward, Ziff Davis primary has published computer and technology related magazines, and its growing number of websites, spun off from its magazines, have established Ziff Davis as an Internet Information company.

Ziff Davis had several broadcasting properties, first in the mid-1970s, and later with its own technology network ZDTV, later renamed to TechTV, that was sold to Vulcan Ventures sometime in 2001. Ziff Davis' magazine publishing offices are primarily in New York City and Woburn, while its internet properties are based in the San Francisco bay area, near the famous Silicon Valley.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Fiction and hobbyist magazines 1.2 Television stations 1.3 Technology magazines and web properties 2 Current magazines 3 Current properties 4 Discontinued magazines and websites 5 Sources

[edit] History

[edit] Fiction and hobbyist magazines

In 1938, Ziff Davis acquired the science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, and soon added a new companion, Fantastic Adventures. In 1954 FA was folded by merger into the newer Fantastic, founded in 1952 to great initial success. ZD published a number of other pulp magazines and, later, digest-sized fiction magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, and continued to publish Amazing and Fantastic till 1965.

William B. Ziff, Sr., died in 1953 and son William B. Ziff, Jr. returned from Germany to assume his role in the company. In 1958 Bernard G. Davis sold his share of Ziff Davis to found Davis Publications. Under the younger Ziff's direction, the company soon became a successful publisher of enthusiast magazines. Ziff Davis purchased titles like Car and Driver and by gearing content towards enthusiasts and readers who made purchasing decisions for their companies ("brand specifiers"), the company was able to attract advertising money that other, general-interest publications were losing.

In the 1970s and 1980s the company's success grew with this approach and a rapidly expanding interest in electronics and computing. With titles such as PC Magazine, Popular Electronics, and Computer Shopper, Ziff Davis rose to the top of the technology magazine business.

[edit] Television stations

In 1979, Ziff Davis expanded into broadcasting, following an acquisition of television stations originally owned by greeting card company Rust Craft. Ziff Davis's stations included NBC affiliates WROC-TV in Rochester, New York and WRCB-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee, CBS affiliates WEYI-TV in Saginaw, Michigan and WSTV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio (which changed its calls to WTOV-TV and its network affiliation to NBC after Ziff Davis assumed control of the station), and ABC affiliate WJKS-TV in Jacksonville, Florida (which would also switch to NBC shortly after its acquisition was finalized). These stations would be sold off to other owners (mainly "Television Station Partners") by the mid-1980s.

Current DMA#	Market	Station	Years Owned	Current Affiliation/Owner
50.	Jacksonville, Florida	WJKS-TV 17 (now WCWJ)	1979-82	CW affiliate owned by Media General
66.	Saginaw - Flint, Michigan	WEYI-TV 25	1979-83	NBC affiliate owned by Barrington Broadcasting
78.	Rochester, New York	WROC-TV 8	1979-83	CBS affiliate owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group
86.	Chattanooga, Tennessee	WRCB-TV 3	1979-82	NBC affiliate owned by Sarkes Tarzian, Inc.
155.	Steubenville, Ohio - Wheeling, West Virginia	WSTV-TV/ WTOV-TV 9	1979-83	NBC affiliate owned by Cox Enterprises

[edit] Technology magazines and web properties

Ziff Davis first started technology-themed publications in 1954, with Popular Electronics and, more briefly, Electronics World led more or less directly to its interest in home-computer magazines. Since then, Ziff Davis became a major player in the field of computer and internet related publishing. In 1982 it acquired PC Magazine. In [[1988] it acquired the trade journal MacWEEK. In 1989 the company launched the ZDNet site. In 1995 it launched the magazine Yahoo! Internet Life, initially as ZD Internet Life. The magazine was meant to accompany and complement the site Yahoo!.

In 1998, Ziff Davis started ZDTV, a technology-themed television network. ZDTV was sold to Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc. in 2000, and was renamed to TechTV.

In 2001 Ziff Davis Media Inc. reached an agreement with CNET Networks Inc. and ZDNet to regain the URLs lost in the 2000 sale of Ziff Davis Inc, to SoftBank. The Ziff Davis Media Inc. partnership of Willis Stein & Partners and James Dunning (former Ziff Davis CEO, chairman, and president) gained the online content licensing rights to 11 publications, including PC Magazine, CIO Insight and eWEEK, home to industry insider Spencer Katt.

Since 2004, Ziff Davis has annually hosted a trade show in New York City known as DigitalLife. DigitalLife showcases the newest technology in consumer electronics, gaming and entertainment. Unlike E3 or the Worldwide Developers Conference, DigitalLife is open to the public.

In November 2006, Ziff Davis announced the cancellation of the Official Playstation Magazine. They cited a lack of interest in the magazine (and its demo disk) due to digital distribution. OPM had run since 1997.

[edit] Current magazines

Electronic Gaming Monthly

Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

eWeek

PC Magazine

• Baseline
• CIO Insight

[edit] Current properties

1UP.com	DL.TV	CrankyGeeks	ExtremeTech
FileFront.com	GameTab.com	GameVideos.com	MyCheats.com

• eSeminars
• Microsoft Watch
• PDF Zone
• Publish
• Gearlog.com (formerly Sync)
• The Channel Insider
• ExtremeDAP.com (Formerly ExtremeiPod, the name was changed following pressure from Apple over the use of iPod.)
• Gazerk

[edit] Discontinued magazines and websites

Computer Gaming World

GameNOW (a.k.a EGM2 and Expert Gamer)

GMR

• Xbox Nation
• Patch Management
• Small Business Center
• Yahoo! Internet Life
• PC Computing
• Official US PlayStation Magazine
• Sm@rt Partner

[edit] Sources

• De la Merced, Michael J., "William B. Ziff Jr., 76, Builder of Magazine Empire Dies", The New York Times, September 12, 2006.
• Thorsen, Tor. "RIP OPM." GameSpot. CNET Networks. 20 Nov 2006 [1].
• "Ziff Davis Media: Press Release." Ziff Davis Reports Fourth Quarter 2005 Results. Ziff Davis Publishing Inc.. 8 Oct 2006 [2].