| Type | Private (formerly public) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Magazine Publishing/Internet Information Provider |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Founder(s) | William B. Ziff, Sr. Bernard G. Davis |
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Key people | Lance Ulanoff |
| 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 publisher and Internet 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, Ziff Davis has primarily 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 in 2001. Ziff Davis' magazine publishing and Internet operations offices are based in New York City, San Francisco and Woburn (Massachusetts).
The company (Ziff Davis Media) announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 5, 2008[1] and emerged, following a court supervised corporate restructuring in July 2009.[2]
On January 6, 2009, the company sold 1up.com to UGO Entertainment, a division of Hearst Corporation and announced the January 2009 issue of the long-running EGM magazine as the final one.[3]
Former Time Inc. executive Vivek Shah, with financial backing from Boston private equity firm Great Hill Partners, announced on June 4, 2010 the acquisition of Ziff Davis Inc. as the "first step in building a new digital media company that specializes in producing and distributing content for consumers making important buying decisions."[4]
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The William B. Ziff Company, founded in 1920, was a successful Chicago advertising agency that secured advertising from national firms such as Procter & Gamble for virtually all African American weekly newspapers. In 1923, Ziff acquired E. C. Auld Company, a Chicago publishing house. Ziff's first venture in magazine publishing was Ziff's Magazine, which featured short stories, one-act plays, humorous verse, and jokes. The title was changed to America's Humor in April 1926.[5][6]
Bernard George Davis was the student editor of the University of Pittsburgh's humor magazine, the Pitt Panther, and was active in the Association of College Comics of the East. In his senior year he attended the association's convention and met William B. Ziff. When Davis graduated in 1927 he joined Ziff as the editor of America's Humor.[7] [8]
Ziff, who had been an aviator in World War I, created a new magazine, Popular Aviation, in August 1927 that was published by Popular Aviation Publishing Company of Chicago, Illinois. Under Editor Harley W. Mitchell it became the largest aviation magazine, with a circulation of 100,000 in 1929.[9] The magazine's title became Aeronautics in June 1929 and the publishing company's name became Aeronautical Publications, Inc. The title was changed back to Popular Aviation in July 1930. The magazine became Flying in 1942 and is still published today by the Bonnier Corporation. The magazine celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2007.
The company histories normally give the founding date as 1927. This is when B.G. Davis joined and Popular Aviation magazine started. It was not until 1936 that the company became the "Ziff-Davis Publishing Company". (Popular Aviation, April 1936, was the first issue by Ziff-Davis Publishing.) Davis was given a substantial minority equity position in the company and was appointed a vice-president and director. He was later named president in 1946. Davis was a photography enthusiast and the editor of the Popular Photography magazine started in May 1937.[8]
In early 1938, Ziff-Davis acquired Radio News and Amazing Stories magazines.[10] These were founded by Hugo Gernsback but sold in the Experimenter Publishing bankruptcy in 1929. Both magazines had declined since the bankruptcy but the resources of Ziff-Davis rejuvenated them starting with the April 1938 issues. Radio News was published until 1972 and in 1955 spun off Popular Electronics which was published until 1985. Amazing Stories was a leading science fiction magazine and Ziff Davis soon added a new companion, Fantastic Adventures (FA). 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 until 1965.
Ziff-Davis published comic books in the early 1950s, operating under their own name and also the imprint Approved Comics. Eschewing superheroes, they published horror, crime, sports, romance, and Western comics, though most titles didn't last more than a few issues. Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was the art director of the comics line; other notable creators who worked for Ziff-Davis Comics included John Buscema, Sid Greene, Sam Kweskin, Rudy Lapick, Richard Lazarus, Mort Leav, Paul S. Newman, Mike Sekowsky, Ernie Schroeder, and Ogden Whitney. In 1953, the company mostly gave up on comics, selling its most popular titles — the romance comics Cinderella Love and Romantic Love, the Western title Kid Cowboy, and the jungle adventure title Wild Boy of the Congo— to St. John Publications. Ziff-Davis continued to published one title, G.I. Joe, until 1957, a total of 51 issues.
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 1958, Ziff-Davis began publishing a magazine, HiFi and Music Review, for those who were interested in the growing hobby of high fidelity equipment. Ultimately, the magazine evolved into Stereo Review.
Ziff Davis sold the majority of its magazines to CBS in 1984, keeping its tech magazines.
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.
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, WRDW-TV in Augusta, Georgia 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 |
| 47. | Jacksonville, Florida | WJKS-TV 17 (now WCWJ) |
1979-82 | The CW affiliate owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group |
| 66. | Saginaw - Flint, Michigan | WEYI-TV 25 | 1979-83 | NBC affiliate owned by Barrington Broadcasting |
| 80. | 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. |
| 115. | Augusta, Georgia | WRDW-TV 12 | 1979-83 (?) | CBS affiliate owned by Gray Television |
| 159. | Steubenville, Ohio - Wheeling, West Virginia | WSTV-TV/ WTOV-TV 9 |
1979-83 | NBC affiliate owned by Cox Enterprises |
Ziff Davis first started technology-themed publications in 1954, with Popular Electronics and, more briefly, Electronics World. This led more or less directly to its interest in home-computer magazines. From that time forward, Ziff Davis became a major player in the field of computer and Internet-related publishing. It acquired PC Magazine in 1982, and the trade journal MacWEEK in 1988. In 1989, the company launched the ZDNet site. In 1991 ZDNet on CompuServe and on the fledgling Internet were augmented by the purchase of Public Brand Software, the leading shareware disk provider. 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 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.
In July 2007, Ziff Davis Media announced the sale of their enterprise division to Insight Venture Partners. The sale included all B2B publications which include eWeek, Baseline, and CIOinsight, and all related online properties. The enterprise division is now a stand alone company called Ziff Davis Enterprise Group. Ziff Davis is now currently owned by Jason Young.
In March 2008, Ziff Davis Media Inc announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to restructure its debt and operations. This was after selling their B2B (business-to-business) division, Ziff Davis Enterprise to Insight Partners. In conjunction with this announcement they also stated that they are discontinuing their print copy of PC Magazine.
According to BtoBonline, Ziff Davis Media has reached an agreement with an ad hoc group of noteholders, who will provide $24.5 million to fund the firm’s operations and help plan the restructure.[11]
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