Sarah Ellison provides a portrait of Yahoo in its hollowed-out decline, having overplayed its hand in CEO Marissa Mayer’s zeal to be a media juggernaut. Yahoo once wanted to be both a media and tech company, she writes, though in the midst of a sale, “the product side seems to be winning.”
Here is a perhaps crazy idea that sources say Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and her top executives have considered for saving the company: buying cable networks. Mayer and Yahoo considered acquiring Scripps Networks Interactive and may have actually begun M&A discussions with Scripps regarding at least two potential deals. In addition, Yahoo may have interest in buying CNN.
Online video is “a huge opportunity” and Yahoo needs “a terrific platform”, CEO Marissa Mayer told analysts in a conference call Tuesday. She wouldn’t say specifically how much she plans to spend, but over the next year the company will focus on its technology while it also cuts content deals similar to the one it recently made to become the exclusive home for the Saturday Night Live archives.
As Marissa Mayer approaches her one-year anniversary as chief executive of Yahoo, she’s hewing closely to the struggling Web portal’s traditional advertising model — and eyeing more video programming of every stripe.
Exclusives
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s $36.6 million of compensation last year makes her the top-earning new-media chief executive, according to analysis from SNL Kagan. Her old boss, Google’s Larry Page, was at the other end of the spectrum, earning just $1 in pay in 2012.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — As a top executive at Google for the past 13 years, Marissa Mayer played an instrumental role in developing many of the services that have tormented […]
