Posts by mwright

Trinity Mirror has reported a fall of nearly 20% in print ad revenues as it confirmed it is to close the New Day after just two months

Press Release: MCH Group, a globally leading live marketing company with its head office in Basel (Switzerland) has acquired a 100% holding in MC2 (“MC-squared”), a recognized leader in the and event marketing industry in the U.S. This is by far the biggest acquisition in the 100-year history of MCH Group and a key strategic expansion. “The acquisition of MC2 marks a tremendous step forward in the implementation of our corporate strategy, which we have been pursuing since 2005”, explains René Kamm, CEO of MCH Group. “With MC2, we will be greatly boosting our international presence and activities, as well as expanding our range of services in the live marketing field.”

Japanese advertising giant Dentsu has agreed to acquire an 89 per cent stake in Indian digital agency SVG Media. Dentsu said its subsidiary Dentsu Aegis Network would acquire the stake in SVG Media Group with the option to increase its share to make the Indian company a wholly owned subsidiary

Two companies increase their advertising duopoly by earning a combined $106.3bn, nearly double the figure of five years ago

Press Release: Investment Week founder Tim Weller and the leadership team of parent Incisive Media have secured a management buyout (MBO), that allows the business to accelerate its growth strategy under long-term private ownership. The MBO was led by Tim Weller, founder and chairman, CFO Jamie Campbell-Harris and CEO Jonathon Whiteley; a team who have worked together in the business for two decades.

The luxury magazine market, for so long a well-heeled haven from the turmoil facing the rest of the print media industry, could be about to confront the same headwinds battering other magazines and newspapers. Analysts say that glossy magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair are starting to see a shift in readers and advertisers to online social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. But they are also being hit by forces specific to the industry that has for so long offered them protection.

Iliffe Media has acquired KM Media Group as the Kent publisher struggled under massive “pension liabilities” that had impacted on investment. The group produces nine paid-for and four free newspapers including the award-winning Kent Messenger series and the Kentish Gazette, established in 1717

US and European publishers have given support to the idea of Google introducing an ad-blocker to its widely used Chrome internet browser despite fears it would hit their online advertising revenues. Details of the technology group’s plans have not been disclosed but Google has said it held “initial conversations” on the idea with publishers.

21st Century Fox is in talks with private equity giant Blackstone to buy Tribune Media, one of America’s largest television station operators, sources familiar with the matter have said.

According to Campaignlive.co.uk, Mixmag Media has completed a double acquisition of weekly rock magazine Kerrang! and The Face from Bauer Media. The Face will be revived as a digital brand, but Mixmag Media’s Jerry Perkins’ initial focus is reported to be on Kerrang! and, in particular, its digital offering

Gojimo, an app that helps U.K. high school students prepare for exams, has been acquired by Telegraph Media Group, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but from what I gather the Gojimo team are staying on and the company will still be run as a separate entity.

The Daily Telegraph is a rare beast: a British newspaper that makes healthy profits. All around it, the news industry is being upended by plunging revenues from print advertising and the migration of digital advertising to Facebook and Google. But in 2015, the Telegraph Media Group made a £48m pre-tax profit on a turnover of £320m, a slight improvement on the £46m it made in 2014. It is still Britain’s biggest-selling quality daily paper, though its print circulation has fallen from its peak of more than 1m papers a day in the early 2000s to 457,331 in February, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Relx has sold leading science magazine the New Scientist as the FTSE 100 group continues its shift away from traditional publishing to data and information services. The magazine, which has a global print and digital circulation of almost 125,000, according to ABC, was bought by Kingston Acquisitions, an investment vehicle led by Sir Bernard Gray, a businessman who previously led a buy out of the Times Educational Supplement from News Corp. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

Press Release: Future plc (LSE: FUTR, “the Group”), the international media group and leading digital business, provides a trading update for the six months to 31 March 2017. Overall trading for the year to date has been positive. The Group’s Media division is performing strongly with the fast growing revenue streams of e-commerce and events up around 70% and 15% year on year respectively. As a result the Board’s expectation for the Group’s results for both the first six months and the financial year as a whole remain uncharged

Press Release: Comexposium Group announced today that Simon Foster has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer as of August 2017. At that time, Renaud Hamaide will transition from CEO to Executive Chairman.

Haymarket Media Group is to invest £50m over the next three years and create more than 100 jobs in a new division, Haymarket Automotive

Secaucus, NJ-based Northstar Travel Group has acquired the assets of L.A.-based Schneider Publishing, including a trio of annual events and a pair of related media brands, the company announced today.

Japanese advertising giant Dentsu has agreed to buy US digital marketer Leapfrog. The Tokyo-based company said it would acquire a 100 per cent stake in Leapfrog, whose proprietary LFX Conversion Platform aims to optimise the consumer experience via channels ranging from social media to physical stores. Leapfrog, which is headquartered in Illinois, generated revenue of $32m in the 12 months ended December 2016 and employs 150 people, most of who are software engineers and data scientists

Press Release: Reed Business Information (RBI) has announced today that it has agreed to divest New Scientist and its associated products and events to Kingston Acquisitions Limited, a company established by the former management team of Times Educational Supplement.  Terms were not disclosed.

The Times has seen subscriptions sales jump 200 percent in the last year, since it pivoted from publishing on a breaking-news cycle to a digital editions-based publishing strategy a year ago. Subscriber churn is also at a record low, down 4 percentage points compared to the previous year, according to Catherine Newman, chief marketing officer at The Times and Sunday Times. Last summer, total print and digital paying subscribers rested at 413,600, according to the publisher. And in the first half of 2016, new paying-subscriber sales rose 200 percent compared to the first half of 2015