'Hot Air' Sold to Salem Communications! - UPDATED!!

I guess Allah won't be calling Michelle "The Boss" over at Hot Air much longer. See Mediaite, "Exclusive: Hot Air Acquired By Salem Communications":

CPAC hasn’t even officially started and already its making news. Mediaite has learned that leading center-right web site Hot Air has been acquired by Salem Communications for an undisclosed sum. Sources close to the deal claim that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and sole owner of Hot Air, has been in talks with Salem for some time, but the announcement was timed to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which opens tomorrow in Washington D.C.

Hot Air is one of the biggest, most influential conservative sites on the Web and was launched on April 24, 2006, with Michelle Malkin as founder/CEO (though she remains editorially focused on her own blog MichelleMalkin.com and her own writing and television appearances.) Hot Air is managed on a day-to-day basis by editors Ed Morrissey and the mysterious AllahPundit, who are reported to be part of the deal in the sale of to Salem, and absolutely essential to the core value of Hot Air. We are told that, from a user’s perspective, Hot Air will remain the same despite the change in ownership.

This is official. See Hot Air, "Open Thread: Hot Air Acquisition."

I guess a big announcement's forthcoming tomorrow. I wonder how much Salem paid?

And at Glenn Reynolds', "Is InstaPundit for sale, you ask? A better question: Who would buy it?" I haven't read the additional posts at Memeorandum, but I'll try to update later with relevant information.

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UPDATE: There's more on this at Atlantic Wire, "Sale of 'Hot Air' Shakes Up Conservative Blogosphere:

Hot Air was an odd property for Malkin, a fierce blogger whose opinions typically fall several degrees to the right of those expressed by Morrissey and Allahpundit. Allahpundit has drawn occasional conservative attacks for his criticism of two Republican untouchables: Sarah Palin and Christianity. The deal is shaking up the conservative blogosphere, with many wondering how the sale will affect Hot Air and its place in the field of Web commentary.

My first reaction was that Michelle's motive for off-loading Hot Air was financial, hence my interest in "how much Salem paid." And certainly, if she's been unhappy with the direction of the commentary over there, she probably would've just hired new bloggers. We'll see, in any case. Robert Stacy McCain takes issue with the Atlantic's piece. But here's this from the comments at Gateway Pundit:

I know it’s somewhat of a cop-out, but I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude on this one. At first blush I have to ask myself why such a seemingly successful outlet would be for sale to begin with. I know that everything’s for sale for a price, but there’s more here than meets the eye, in my opinion.

Ed Morrissey is an outstanding investigator and writer – a virtual blog posting machine. To me, Ed “is” Hot Air, and I’ll continue to follow his posts whether I’m allowed to comment or not (and currently I am). The “mysterious AllahPundit”, not so much.

If there are changes – and I expect there will be several, despite the initial utterances to the contrary – I would expect that Doctor Zero would replace AP as the #2 writer and AP would become a blogosphere “free agent” ...

I've noted recently the Doctor Zero has become one my favorite bloggers, so that'd be a positive change IMHO.