Huffington Post more valuable than Canwest

As long-rumored, The Huffington Post took $25 million in new funding at a $100 million valuation. It's a healthy sum given the company has aggregated a huge audience -- 8.8 million people a month, accordng to Quantcast -- primarily on links to content it does not produce (newspaper stories) or pay for (columns).

The funding means Arianna Huffington's news blog is now considered more valuable by its backers than quite a few publicly traded newspaper companies, such as Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and 52 other papers (market cap: $36 million), A.H. Belo, owner of the Dallas Morning News and the Providence Journal (market cap: $35 million), and Media General, owner of the Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch (market cap: $34.6 million).

Canwest owns daily newspapers in every major Canadian market. It also has the Global network of TV stations, as well as Australian TV operations through Network Ten.

Canwest shares fell 4 Canadian cents to close at 70 Canadian cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday.