• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 7, 2006

Consolidations among online media companies accelerated in the first quarter, according to a new report by the Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc.

Led by NBC Universal's purchase last month of women's network iVillage for $550 million, the first quarter saw 37 online media mergers and acquisitions, which totaled $2.36 billion. In the first three months of last year, by contrast, 24 deals transpired in the online media space; the total value of the deals last year came to $2.7 billion, but that figure included IAC/InterActive's $1.9 billion acquisition of Ask Jeeves.

Excluding the Ask Jeeves purchase, the merger and acquisition market looks more robust than in 2005, said Adam Gross, vice president-marketing at Jordan, Edmiston. The activity so far this year shows "a very, very strong return trend for the online media industry, in terms of value and number of deals," Gross said.

Other notable online deals in the first quarter include the Reader's Digest purchase last month of recipe site Allrecipes.com for $66 million; AOL's purchase of video search engine Truveo in January for an estimated $50 million; and WebMD's January acquisition of medical reference site eMedicine.com for $25.5 million.

Deals also accelerated in the media industry overall, with 168 acquisitions in the first quarter, totaling $14.63 billion; last year, the first quarter saw 156 acquisitions totaling $10.85 billion.

The marketing and interactive services space saw 38 deals, worth a total of $2 billion, in the first three months of this year--up from 29 deals, worth $1.56 billion, in the first quarter of 2005.