Amidst a falling share price GoFish has dropped its $30 million stock trade for Bolt.com. The deal was also meant to help Bolt pay its settlement with several music labels, including Universal Music.
GoFish had initially celebrated the acquisition in their April 10KSB report as increasing distribution for their “made for internet” (MFI) video shows. The combined sites were expected to draw 7 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. and roughly 14 million globally (according to Comscore Media Metrix).
The deal was expected to close in May 2007. The stalling deal was most likely responsible for the precipitous drop in their share price in June. The drop saw the company’s market cap shrink from $134 million to about $15 million. The acquisition eventually fell through due to alleged licensing concerns.
GoFish has also experienced other problems. Sources close to the company have reported a major ad network stopped serving ads on the site last month due to the low volume of monetizeable traffic. Over two months, the network saw their total ad spending drop to $20 a day at a $1 cpm. This infers 20,000 unique visitors per day seeing advertisements on GoFish.com. The lack of advertising inventory on the front page was cited as a possible reason for the low numbers.