Green Wombat

Discovery Communication’s acquisition today of green blog TreeHugger – for a cool $10 million, according to the New York Post – is another sign of the shifting media landscape and how companies are turning to online magazines to reach green consumers. Not too many years ago a publisher seeking to ride a societal shift and rake in advertising would have started a print publication. After all, the great dot-com boom of the late ’90s inspired a passel of dead-tree – and now mostly dead – magazines like The Industry Standard and Business 2.0 (Green Wombat’s employer).  Not anymore. TreeHugger launched online in 2004 to chronicle a growing interest in the environment and the green lifestyle. Stylishly designed and tapping a global network of correspondents, New York-based TreeHugger serves up a mix of news, advocacy and product reviews through its blog and pod-and-vodcasts.  The purchase price might seem modest but Green Wombat bets TreeHugger’s overhead runs at a mere fraction of a print mag’s. TreeHugger’s reach – 1.4 million visitors a month – clearly appealed to Discovery (DISCA), whose cable TV holdings include the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, the Science Channel, and the upcoming Planet Green eco-network.