The E.W. Scripps company has purchased the humor website Cracked.com from Demand Media for a reported $39 million. The Cracked brand dates back to the humor magazine that started in the 1950s and has a storied history of competing with the similar satirical animated humor magazine, MAD.
Scripps' purchase of the website comes as the old media company attempts to expand its brand to attract younger eyeballs and diversify further into new media. Scripps currently operates numerous newspapers, radio and TV stations, many of which are affiliated with the big three broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS.
Cracked.com, according to Demand Media, has more than one million YouTube subscribers to its dedicated channel, along with over 20 million views of its video content per month on both YouTube and Facebook. Recent Comscore data indicates the site had over eight million visitors in January.
There is something of an irony in that Scripps is purchasing the site in order to increase its new media presence, while the Cracked brand is firmly rooted in old media. Cracked began as an unabashed copy of the successful MAD magazine, and even included a similar animated mascot, Sylvester Smythe, to rival its competitor's famous Alfred E. Neuman. The Cracked website itself describes the magazine as the poor man's version of MAD and states that it was created "as a knock-off of MAD magazine just under 50 years ago" and "spent nearly half a decade with a fan base primarily comprised of people who got to the store after MAD sold out."
While the magazine was relatively successful for its almost-50-year run, it always took a backseat in popularity to MAD. However, as the digital age ensued, Cracked managed to morph itself from a defunct print magazine into a relevant humor website, while competitor MAD fell by the wayside. With millennials increasingly turning to hybrid humor-oriented news sources such as the Onion, The Daily Show, and Last Week With John Oliver to stay informed, Scripps' purchase of the site is an attempt to run with that trend.
Adam Symson, chief digital officer of E.W. Scripps, explained, "Younger audiences are faced with expanding choice, but they are just as interested in knowing what's going on in the world and they want to be informed and entertained at the same time," he said. "What we see is the opportunity to expand upon (Cracked.com's success) and move what they've done on the Web, attracting a loyal audience, and accelerate that and expand that into the over-the-top space."
