Inc Ziff-Davis - Magazine Publishing Business Becomes Ziff Davis Media, Inc., Computer And Technical Portal, Zdnet, Computer Cable Channel, Zdtv

Before the company was dismantled and its separate businesses sold off, Ziff-Davis Inc. reached its target audience of techies through three media: print, cable TV, and the Internet. The company's magazine publishing business produced a range of computer and technologically oriented magazines for the business and consumer market. Ziff-Davis's online service ZDNet went live on the Internet in 1995, and its cable TV channel ZDTV was launched in May 1998. The company also operated Ziff-Davis Events, which produced trade shows and expositions—the best known of which is Comdex—and had other interests.

Ziff-Davis Inc., also known as Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. and a subsidiary of Ziff Communications, went public in 1998. For many years the company was a private business owned by the Ziff family and published a wide range of magazines. In the mid-1980s it sold off 24 off its trade and consumer magazines to CBS Inc. and to Rupert Murdoch to focus on computer, technology, and interactive gaming magazines. In 1994 the company launched two new titles, Computer Life and Family PC. In October 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing was sold to buyout specialist Forst-mann Litle and Co. for $1.4 billion. A little more than a year later, in December 1995, Japanese software giant Softbank Corp. acquired Ziff-Davis for $2.1 billion. Both of these transactions had the effect of burdening the company with a heavy load of debt.

In 1998 turned out to be a difficult year for the company financially, despite the fact that it went public in May. It shut down three of its titles—Equip, Internet Business, and Windows Pro—and laid off 350 workers, or 10 percent of its U.S. workforce. Parent company Softbank, pursuing an Internet-based strategy, started dismantling Ziff-Davis's assets and selling off pieces of the company that were not related to the Internet. ZDTV eventually went to Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures and was renamed TechTV. The magazine publishing business was sold in a management buyout backed by venture capital firm Willis Stein & Partners for $780 million in December 1999, and resulted in the creation of Ziff Davis Media, Inc. Even the company's computer and technology portal ZDNet was sold to rival CNET in July 2000 for $1.6 billion.