GT Interactive buys Net firm
The "edutainment" software maker plans to buy OneZero Media in a stock deal valued at $15 million.
GT said it hopes to expand its offerings by providing an established platform for e-commerce and for promoting new entertainment products and content.
Under the terms of the agreement, OneZero owners will receive 2.4 million shares of GT common stock. The transaction will be treated as a pooling of interests, and OneZero will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of GT.
GT is a global publisher of edutainment and entertainment PC and console software, and claims $531 million in revenue for 1997.
"Leveraging the core competencies of OneZero Media and GT Interactive, our goal is to build the premier entertainment portal and establish an online community to fulfill a wide variety of consumers' entertainment needs," said GT chairman and CEO Ron Chaimowitz in a statement. "Our acquisition of OneZero Media represents the next logical step as we build upon our core strengths in entertainment software, brand building and retail merchandising to become a cross-media entertainment company."
A two-year-old company, OneZero Media focused on the convergence of entertainment and marketing by linking its television program, The Wild Wild Web, to its portal-based site. The company said the show is syndicated by CBS/Eyemark, and is now available in 85 million households. The program directs traffic to its www.getwild.com Web site.
OneZero is also the producer of content and commerce for Alta-Vista's Entertainment Zone.