io9 gets no love as Gawker Media crowned most valuable blogging company

In the latest sign that science fiction is seen by some as a universe of people and starships and societies where Wall Street is irrelevant, Douglas A. McIntyre of the financial commentary website 24/7 Wall St. neglected to mention the SF blog io9 when he compiled a list of the
“Twenty Five Most Valuable Blogs,” even though io9’s parent, Gawker Media, sits atop the list and several of io9’s siblings are mentioned:

1. Gawker Properties. This blog company has a number of successful sites including Gawker, Defamer, Jezebel, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Jalopnik. In combination, the sites have about 23 million unique visitors and over 200 million pageviews a month. The company’s owner, Nick Denton, says the firm’s advertising is holding up this quarter. Traffic at most of the sites is still growing, in some cases at a rate of over 50%. The average CPM for each page across all of the properties is estimated at $15. That makes Gawker at $36 million business. Based on staffing levels, the company should have margins well above 50%. With an 8x operating income valuation, the company is worth $170 million.

Interesting analysis. Unrelated, I wonder if Mr. McIntyre thinks the forthcoming film Watchmen will generate more than $100 million at the box office on opening weekend.