SpinMedia, the owner of Spin magazine, announced on Thursday that it has bought 21-year-old hip-hop and R&B publication Vibe, the New York Times reports. Spin chief executive Steve Hansen said that the company plans to shut down Vibe's print magazine later this year:
The sale reunites the two publications, which more than a decade ago were part of the same company, Vibe/Spin Ventures, before each went through a series of sales.
Calling Vibe "an industry leader in the urban and hip-hop category for decades," Steve Hansen, SpinMedia's chief executive, added in an interview: "It's really exciting to add this to SpinMedia's collection of music properties and bring more digital DNA to the team and see what they can do."
SpinMedia, until recently known as Buzz Media, owns or represents more than 40 sites, like Celebuzz, Idolator and JustJared, that cater to young pop-culture fans and compete with a range of sites like Gawker, TMZ, Pitchfork and BuzzFeed.
After it bought Spin last summer, Buzz Media promptly shut down the print magazine and laid off a third of its staff. It said it would concentrate on the Web site and consider eventually reviving the print version of Spin in some form.
Read more at the New York Times.