The New Math of Media Deals

In a span of just three days, the sales of three giants of the old-media world â€" The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and Newsweek â€" were announced, at prices a fraction of the properties’ former value. Wealthy men bought The Post and The Globe; Newsweek was sold to a company that hardly anyone had heard of. The Post announcement prompted the publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to say that the newspaper was not for sale.

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Compare the three recent sales to the $1.1 billion fetched earlier this year by Tumblr, a microblogging site that allows users to quickly post words and pictures and whose founder, David Karp, once said advertising “really turns our stomachs.” Yahoo bought Tumblr for more than the combined sale prices of The Post and The Globe. (Newsweek’s sale price has not been disclosed.) Mr. Karp was reported to receive $250 million from the sale â€" as much as Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, paid for all of The Washington Post.

Tumblr’s revenue is not public, but it was reported to have made $13 million in sales last year. Tumblr sells ads now, and its purchase price suggests the market believes that its model is the way of the future.