Fisher Communications Sells Pegasus News

Pegasus News, the Dallas hyperlocal site, was seen as a great model for other markets when Fisher Communications, a leading broadcaster in Seattle and the Northwest, bought the site in July 2007.

But the roiled market in broadcasting apparently stifled Fisher’s ambitions. Ultimately, there were never serious efforts made to install a Pegasus platform on any Fisher property. On Dec. 31, Fisher sold Pegasus for $1.5 million to an unnamed company that is only being described as a “broadly held private media company.”

Before the sale, longtime Seattle Times interactive executive Nancy Bruner, who had been recruited to run Fisher’s interactive efforts, also left the broadcaster (although the two incidents are not necessarily related).

Pegasus founder Mike Orren says his 18-person team sees the sale as a good thing. Initial signs for adding the Pegasus platform to various Fisher markets had been positive, he says, but “the whole world for broadcast media changed a lot” since the company’s acquisition.

Ultimately, Pegasus never provided much more than some tech support and a few ideas, he says. Lost Remote broke the story and has some more details and interesting comments.