stereogum-spin

Stereogum buys itself back from Billboard; SPIN sold to new owner

Billboard-The Hollywood Reporter Media Group announced today that they have sold SPIN and Stereogum, which they acquired along with Vibe in 2016 from Spinmedia. Stereogum has been bought back by founder and EIC Scott Lapatine, who will be CEO. This will be the first time the music blog, started in 2002, has been independently owned since they sold to Pilot Group in 2006 and then BUZZMEDIA (which became SpinMedia) in 2007. Congrats, Scott, and welcome back to the club! (BrooklynVegan has been 100% independently owned and operated since launching in 2004.)

As for SPIN, Billboard reports the publication (which went digital-only back in 2012) has been acquired by Next Management Partners which, according to NMP’s twitter bio, is “a private equity firm specialized in providing strategic capital for digital publishing and advertising technology companies.”

Billboard — which merged with Dick Clark Productions to form Valence in 2018, and which more recently took over part of Nielsen — is keeping Vibe.