A Gay Media Empire to Shove in the Closet

A new kingpin of gay content has just come out to Wall Street: Here Media, which rules queer pay-TV, film, magazines, books, and websites. But has anyone stopped to ask if we need it? More »

PlanetOut sells print business to gay TV service

Bill Gates's money hasn't been enough to staunch the bleeding at PlanetOut. The San Francisco-based gay-media company is finalizing a deal to sell its magazine and book publishing business to the Here Network, a gay and lesbian video-on-demand service. The company publishes leading gay-interest mags The Advocate and Out. Subscribers were up but ad pages down in 2007. A decline in advertising from pharmaceutical companies hurt The Advocate. PlanetOut will keep its online properties such as Gay.com, and promises to promote Here movies as part of the deal.

PlanetOut cofounder digs the knife in deeper

Revenge is always sweet — and no one dishes it out more cuttingly than the gays. Mark Elderkin, the founder of Gay.com — the queer portal that merged with PlanetOut — was, by all appearances, abruptly pushed out of his company last year in a so-called reorganization orchestrated by new CEO Karen Magee. Since then, PlanetOut has suffered a financial torture by a thousand cuts, as a host of new gay blogs and dating sites steal its traffic. Last month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates gave the company a helping hand with fresh financing. But now, Elderkin has designed a scheme to sharpen the assaults of PlanetOut's rivals — and increase his former company's pain. More »

Bill Gates goes gay again

The world's second-richest man just spent $26.2 million on The Gays. PlanetOut, the struggling owners of Gay.com, got an investment from Cascade Investment LLC. As Seattlest notes, that firm is owned by Microsoft's Bill Gates. But it's not the first time Bill has been the backer behind PlanetOut. More »