CNET

• 1. Introduction

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  CNET launched as a cable channel in 1992, founded by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie after Minor left PepsiCo. The idea was simple and ambitious: a 24-hour television network devoted entirely to computers and technology. What followed was three decades of expansion, acquisition, editorial controversy, and a slow reckoning with what happens when media companies trade reputation for revenue. How did a scrappy tech cable channel become one of the most-visited technology websites on the internet, only to later face accusations of publishing AI-generated errors and plagiarized material? And how did it end up sold twice in four years, losing the bulk of its value along the way?

• 2. From Cable to the Web

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  Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and former Disney creative associate Dan Baker helped CNET produce four pilot television programs about computers and the internet. The resulting shows included CNET Central, The Web, and The New Edge. CNET Central aired in syndication on the USA Network before migrating to the Sci-Fi Channel alongside its sister programs. Ryan Seacrest first reached national prominence through CNET, hosting The New Edge and doing voice-over work for the network before his career took him elsewhere.

  CNET online launched in June 1995, and by July 1996 the parent company had completed an initial public offering on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol CNWK. A television news program called News.com began airing on CNBC in 1999. That same year, CNET launched a radio operation, broadcasting technology-themed programming on Clear Channel-owned stations in San Francisco and Boston, as well as on XM Satellite Radio. The radio venture did not find its audience, and CNET Radio ceased operating in January 2003.

• 3. Acquisitions and Expansion

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  CNET Networks spent the late 1990s and early 2000s assembling a sprawling portfolio of web properties. In January 2000, the company acquired comparison shopping site mySimon for $736 million. Nine months later, it bought ZDNet for approximately $1.6 billion, a deal that also brought gaming site GameSpot under CNET's roof because ZDNet had partnered with GameSpot's parent company in late 1996.

  Smaller acquisitions followed at a steady pace. TechRepublic, a site serving IT professionals, cost $23 million in cash and stock in April 2001. The photography website Webshots was purchased for $70 million in 2004, then sold to American Greetings for $45 million in October 2007, a loss of $25 million. Metacritic, the review aggregation site, joined the portfolio in August 2005 for an undisclosed amount. In 2008, programmer Chris Wanstrath, who had worked on GameSpot and Chowhound at CNET, left to start GitHub.

  CNET's growth also generated friction. In 2005, Google refused to grant interviews to any CNET reporter for a full year after CNET published CEO Eric Schmidt's salary, his home neighborhood, and details of his hobbies and political donations. The information had been gathered entirely from Google searches, making the episode a pointed demonstration of how much the search engine knew about its own users.

• 4. The Gamecenter Chapter

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  CNET Gamecenter launched in mid-1996 and quickly grew into a major destination for gaming coverage. The San Francisco Chronicle described it as one of the first websites devoted to computer gaming news. By late 2000, the site was drawing between 50,000 and 75,000 daily visitors, according to Gamecenter head Michael Brown. Nielsen//NetRatings ranked it the sixth-most-popular gaming website in the United States by that point.

  In May 2000, CNET founded the Gamecenter Alliance network, pulling together Gamecenter and four partner websites under one banner. The New York Times called Gamecenter and GameSpot the "Time and Newsweek of gaming sites." Even through the dot-com crash, Gamecenter's revenue held up across online advertising and an affiliate sales program connected to CNET's Game Shopper website. The crash ultimately caught up. Following an almost $400 million loss at CNET, the Gamecenter Alliance network ended in January 2001. On the 7th of February 2001, Gamecenter itself closed as a redundancy reduction measure, with around 190 jobs cut from CNET during that period, including at least 20 at Gamecenter. GameSpot survived because it was the stronger performer of the two.

• 5. Corporate Ownership Changes

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  CBS Corporation bought CNET Networks for $1.8 billion, with the deal announced on the 15th of May 2008 and completed on the 30th of June 2008. The acquisition brought an extensive list of domain names into CBS Interactive, including download.com, news.com, TV.com, mp3.com, and cnet.com itself.

  CBS ownership introduced its own complications. In January 2013, CNET's staff voted Dish Network's Hopper with Sling digital video recorder as the winner of the CES Best in Show award. CBS, then in active litigation with Dish Network, abruptly disqualified the device. Editor-in-chief Lindsey Turrentine described CNET's staff as being in an "impossible" situation. Senior writer Greg Sandoval resigned over the incident. Gary J. Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, criticized the decision in a USA Today op-ed, saying CBS was "destroying its reputation for editorial integrity in an attempt to eliminate a new market competitor." On the 31st of January 2013, the CEA stripped CNET of its authority to decide the Best in Show award, and jointly awarded the prize to both the Hopper with Sling and the Razer Edge.

  Also in 2013, CBS Interactive launched CNET en Espanol on the 19th of September, a Spanish-language technology site led by managing editor Gabriel Sama and reviews editor Juan Garzon. The site served Spanish-speaking technology audiences until Red Ventures shut it down on the 11th of November 2020.

• 6. Red Ventures and the AI Controversy

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  Red Ventures acquired CNET from ViacomCBS for $500 million, completing the transaction on the 30th of October 2020. Two years later, in November 2022, CNET began publishing articles written by artificial intelligence and edited by humans, without disclosing the practice to readers. Independent investigators discovered that some AI-generated articles had been published under human bylines.

  CNET reviewed those articles in January 2023 and found many contained serious errors and plagiarized material. Also in January 2023, editors at a community-edited reference site began downgrading CNET's reliability rating as a source because of the AI revelations. CNET's response claimed the site "maintained high editorial standards" and was "not actively using AI to create new content." Staff reported that Red Ventures had pushed them toward more favorable coverage of advertisers and sponsored content. Ten percent of CNET's staff were subsequently laid off. Remaining employees unionized in response to the scandal. One former staffer demanded her byline be removed from the site to protect her professional reputation.

  In August 2023, CNET deleted thousands of old articles to improve its rankings on Google Search, a practice Google publicly said was not a good strategy. Red Ventures then explored a sale in early 2024, seeking at least $250 million for the property. The value they eventually accepted told its own story: on the 6th of August 2024, the New York Times reported a deal to sell CNET to Ziff Davis for $100 million, subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition completed in the third quarter of 2024, putting CNET back in the hands of Ziff Davis, the company that had sold ZDNet to CNET Networks for $1.6 billion a quarter-century earlier.