The magazine business, which has spent the better part of two decades learning how to become something other than the magazine business, is once again rearranging itself.
Ziff Davis, the publicly traded digital media company that has been assembling a considerable collection of brands while most of its competitors have been shedding them, announced on Friday that it had acquired four titles from Recurrent Ventures: the home publications Dwell, Domino, and Business of Home, along with Popular Science, the venerable science magazine that has been explaining technology to American readers since 1872. (Ulysses S. Grant was president.)
The three home titles will form the nucleus of a new lifestyle group within Ziff Davis, to be led by Julia Noran Johnston, who founded Business of Home. Popular Science will join the company's technology division, where it will sit alongside CNET, Mashable, PCMag, and Lifehacker. All staff members at the four publications will be retained, the company said.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, though one executive familiar with the sector estimated the price at less than $20 million.
The acquisition continues what has become an annual ritual for Ziff Davis: buying things while others are not. The company acquired Lifehacker from G/O Media in 2023, paid more than $100 million for CNET from Red Ventures in 2024, and purchased theSkimm in March. It has the resources to continue: In March, Ziff Davis sold its Connectivity division to Accenture for $1.2 billion.
For Recurrent, whose portfolio once sprawled across categories from military affairs to architecture, the sale represents a deliberate narrowing. Andrew Perlman, the chief executive, said the home brands and Popular Science served different audiences and advertisers than Recurrent's core military and automotive holdings, and the company lacked the infrastructure to fully support them.
Whether Ziff Davis can build a lifestyle business of meaningful scale around three home titles remains to be seen. According to a person familiar with the company's plans, Ms. Johnston has been given a mandate to keep buying.
The filing cabinet, it seems, has room for more folders.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Ziff Davis Buys 4 Recurrent Ventures Brands, Opens New Group"