Gannett Joining Online Media Push

The move will allow Scripps to aggregate audiences across media platforms including their newspaper, TV and cable channels and sites.

Asked if the $525 million price tag was right, one investment banker familiar with Scripps says, "It depends on what they do with it." Of the Scripps and Gannett deals he adds that in the near future, "you're going to see a lot of major media companies redeploy 10% to 20% of their market cap into new media platforms such as online and interactive."

Scripps' focus on building cable networks like Home and Garden TV, the Food Network and DYI: Do it Yourself have set it apart from other media companies. Shopzilla will become a standalone operating unit of Scripps, according to the company, but synergies between its cable programming and Shopzilla could drive traffic both ways.

Between Yahoo!'s (YHOO Quote) Yahoo! shopping, Google's (GOOG Quote) Froogle, Amazon (AMZN Quote) and others such as NexTag and PriceGrabber, there is no shortage of competition in the price comparison space.