Well, mocking laughter definitely counts as a reactionIf the Znaim was hoping to get some attention by insanely paying $15 million cash for a cheesy local website aimed at millennials, at least his action managed to catch the eye of Jesse Brown, who runs the Canadaland.com podcast and blog. Brown invited the lottery-winner, one Timmy Shore, to answer the question that might occur to the three or four of us who pay attention to ZUM's share price. Following are conversation highlights, depending on how you define the term "highlights." The full discussion is
here. Jesse Brown: How the hell is your company worth $15 million? Like, what is the annual revenue of blogTO?
Tim Shore: So I mean, I can’t get into financials, obviously, because ZoomerMedia is a public company, so I’m not at liberty to really speak about that anymore. Brown: How’s Moses Znaimer?
Shore: We’re really looking forward to the relationship. I mean, the thing with Moses is he’s such an iconic figure in the Canadian media landscape [having co-founded Citytv, MuchMusic, etc.], and he’s so passionate about local journalism and local media, which is why we feel that this is such a great fit.
Brown: And he made you a millionaire.
Shore: Well, you know, it’s… it’s interesting, you know… it’s actually, I would say… hopefully… What am I trying to say here?
Brown: I don’t know. You should just say “Thanks.”
Shore: Yeah. Thanks, Moses. I mean, it’s tricky to figure out these days what a site or brand like blogTO might be worth: whether they underpaid, overpaid, whether both parties got good value. If we do what we’re planning on doing and we continue to grow the brand, then it should be worth a lot more one day — in which case, 15 million is gonna seem like a pretty cheap price.