The Columbia House Co., New York, has sold the Columbia House Audiobook Club to rival Audio Book Club Inc. of Boca Raton, FL and Morristown, NJ.
Financial terms were not disclosed. As part of the deal, Audio Book Club, which sells audio books over the Internet and by mail, will promote its products through Columbia House for seven years.
Acquiring Columbia House Audiobook, with sales of about $30 million last year, will increase Audio Book Club’s membership to more than 1 million from 400,000, making it the No. 1 seller of books on cassette or compact disk. The purchase closed Dec. 31 and immediately will boost earnings, the Audio Book Club said.
Columbia House said it was divesting the largest audiobook club in the world because it is seeking to migrate its franchise as the world’s largest direct marketer of home entertainment products to the Web and to capitalize on the success of its development initiatives, including “Play from Columbia House,” the DVD Club and Total E (http://www.totale.com).
Columbia House is a partnership controlled by Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Time Warner’s Warner Music Group.
No staff cuts are planned or anticipated as a result of the divestiture, Columbia House said.
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