ZoomerMedia has acquired another youth-oriented news site after buying Buzz Connected Media, the parent company of Daily Hive, for $16.4 million.

The acquisition, when paired with January’s purchase of BlogTO, creates what the company referred to in its announcement as the “largest Millennial and Gen Z focused media platform in Canada.” ZoomerMedia also acquires Daily Hive’s in-house branded digital content studio, Hive Labs.

Moses Znaimer, founder and CEO of ZoomerMedia, says the acquisition will bring his company over 660 million page views a year (275 million of which come from Daily Hive) and put it among the top media companies for social media engagement in Canada. He added that new digital products would be announced in the future, though the company did not specify whether its “media platform” would combine the sites or allow them to continue operating as separate brands.

BlogTO will also be integrated into Daily Hive’s sales infrastructure, which Manny Bahia, co-founder and CRO of Daily Hive, said provides “an industry-leading and well-served Canadian digital audience that will deliver incredible value to any prospective advertiser.”

The deal, funded fully by ZoomerMedia’s cash on hand, is comprised of $6 million in cash, a $5 million promissory note, issuance of $3 million in ZoomerMedia preference shares and assumption of Buzz’s $2.4 million outstanding debt obligation.

Daily Hive is a youth-oriented news and culture site with a particular focus on local coverage of Canada’s five largest cities. It was founded as Vancity Buzz in 2008, adopting its current name in 2016 when its coverage expanded from Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary to also include Toronto and Montreal.

Daily Hive currently averages 24 million page views per month and 3.2 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter. According to Zoomer’s release, Buzz had unaudited revenue of $7 million in the 2021 fiscal year, an improvement over the $5.5 million it earned in 2020. For the year ended June 2022, the company brought in $7.5 million in total revenues and $7.3 million in expenses, resulting in EBITDA of $625,000.

Both Znaimer and Karm Sumal, co-founder and CEO of Daily Hive, also cited both companies’ continued emphasis on local news as a key opportunity going forward.

Zoomer acquired BlogTO at the beginning of the year for $15 million, a move that was somewhat surprising for a media company founded to cater to audiences over the age of 45. However, the move to diversify its audience was a way to offer more attractive, integrated buys to advertisers. The company also saw cross-promotion opportunities due to some unexpected overlap between their audiences and a shared emphasis on local news. For BlogTO, the backing of Zoomer also allowed it to invest in more social opportunities to grow revenue.

In its most recent fiscal quarter, covering the three months ended May 31, ZoomerMedia earned $14.33 million in revenue (a year-over-year increase of 25.4%) and EBITDA of $2.91 million (a 86.1%). That performance was bolstered by the BlogTO transaction, which contributed $1.19 million in revenue; however, that came with a 74.6% increase in expenses for the company’s online division, attributed to higher editorial costs, BlogTO’s expenses and increased spending in content production and digital.