What's A Web Site Worth?

The oldest newspaper, radio, TV and "city.com" Web sites turned 14 years old this year. In that short time span they have evolved from being interesting experiments to become their parent organizations' center of attention and financial saviors. Some of them now generate millions in revenue and significant profits, and have high potential for continued growth - begging the question of just how much these local Web sites might be worth.

BIA Financial Network has teamed up with Borrell Associates to analyze local Web site revenues, expenses and growth trends in this report, "What's A Web Site Worth? Valuation Metrics For Local Web Sites".What emerged was another strong indication of the fundamental changes taking place in the media industry: local Web sites generate important value for their owners, especially for owners that have positioned their sites for growth in key high-demand advertising categories such as e-mail, streaming video and paid search. Some of these local Web sites are worth between $300 million and $450 million, and even small sites are seeing values in the low millions of dollars.