It isn’t making the religion blogs and newswires, and I would have missed it entirely if Get Religion hadn’t mentioned it, but religion mega-site Beliefnet is being put up for sale by News Corp. (owner of Fox News) after acquiring it only three years ago.
“It looks like News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has lost faith in Beliefnet. After only three years of ownership, the media giant is seeking a buyer for Beliefnet, a website devoted to religion and spirituality. The decision was first reported by AllThingsD and confirmed by people with knowledge of the situation. News Corp. acquired Beliefnet for an undisclosed sum in 2007, with plans to integrate it with the company’s other faith-based units, including HarperCollin’s Zondervan unit, which publishes bibles and Christian titles such as Rick Warren’s best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life.” Fox Home Entertainment also operates Fox Faith, a label that distributes family films and Christian DVDs to retailers and through churches and ministries … As with other digital assets, News Corp. has decided to jettison Beliefnet as no longer fitting with its strategy.“
Back in 2007 I was rather pessimistic about Rupert Murdoch’s company acquiring the site; I didn’t think it would lead to some new synergistic golden age for the fiscally unstable religion hub.
“No doubt promises of independence and a glorious future are forthcoming, but I’m not sure this will be good for the already-marginalized religious minorities who were once strong supporters of Beliefnet. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, over the next few years, Beliefnet grows ever-more Christian and conservative in tone. A “family friendly” site to help promote Fox Faith films and hype new Christian book releases from (coincidentally) Zondervan.”
In defense of the new owners, they did fiscally stabilize the site, and tried their best to adapt to the new blogging and social networking culture that grew up in the years since Beliefnet first launched (blogging was still in its infancy back in 1999). They even installed a Pagan blogger (Gus diZerega) back in 2009, after years of complaints over how the site treated its non-Christian communities. But the question now is, who wants Beliefnet? While they are still the most popular religion site on the Internet, their numbers have been softening of late, shedding nearly 400,000 regular visitors in the three years under News Corp. Some, like former Beliefnet News Producer Ira Rifkin, think the site may have run its course.
“Beliefnet has made itself irrelevant and US magazine down-market by dropping all serious content – even its blogs have lost all their umph. How many bumper-sticker-depth, saccharin lead features consisting of no more than – literally – “inspirational” one-liners, cheery photos of flowery fields or “15 Love Lessons from ‘Sex and the City’” can you run before serious readers looking for consequential spiritual/religious insights to help guide their actions realize how trite it all is, get bored and log off, taking sponsors with them? Beliefnet is worth very little in today’s media market. Empress Oprah might be a good match, except she has no need to spend money on a much inferior version of her own product line. In short, Beliefnet may have run its course. We’ll see.”
For the record, today’s “headline” features are “Movie Mom Looks Ahead At New Family Films”, “Support For Military Families”, “How To Treat Yourself Royally”, and “12 Ways To Be A Better Listener”. It’s not exactly what you would call gripping, hard-hitting, or even fascinating. Still, 2.4 million readers is nothing to sneeze at, and that might tempt a news or media outlet to acquire the site/brand and do something new with it. But whoever acquires Beliefnet will be dealing with a very changed religious-news and information landscape. Where once the site stood alone, they now have competitors in an expanding God(s)-beat on the Internet. Patheos, Religion Dispatches, the Huffington Post’s new religion section, CNN‘s just-launched Belief Blog, and the Newsweek/Washington Post-supported On Faith are just some of the sites it must now contend with, not to mention the ever-thriving religious blogosphere where folks can find original and curated news to fit their particular social and theological niche.
So, to echo Get Religion’s question, who do you think should acquire Beliefnet? What changes should the prospective buyer(s) make if they do pick it up? Should Beliefnet survive at all? Will it go down in history as an early failed experiment in new media attempts to cover religion and spirituality, or will it rise once more and keep its spot at the top?
Follow Patheos
Pagan: