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Media - Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Pegasus News Bought By Fisher Communications

There is an endless stream of news and analysis these days about the rise of online only media at the expense of broadcasters and specifically print. The older companies have generally sought to stay afloat by buying into new media. A late comer to this strategy is Fisher Communications (NASDAQ:FSCI) which today says that it has acquired online start-up Pegasus News, which specializes in providing personalized local news, information, and advertising. In other words, Pegasus is a poor man's Topix.

Fisher says it plans to take Pegasus’ model to additional US markets in the coming year. And Fisher says it plans to do more deals with online companies.

Based in Dallas, Pegasus News launched its Web site at in 2006. Financial terms were not disclosed with the Pegasus deal. The company was founded by two friends - Mike Orren was Publisher at American Lawyer Media and associate publisher at D Magazine. His co-founder Gary Cohen was a lawyer. They bootsrapped the company and somehow were able to get editors to work for free who they praise in the announcement: "This amazing group stuck with this for nearly four months without paychecks (and a couple months prior knowing that the dry spell was impending)."

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