The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a sudden jolt to organizers of face-to-face events, and perhaps none more so than Informa plc, the world’s largest exhibitions firm, which has been forced to cancel or postpone more than 450 live events originally scheduled for the spring and summer.
Around 60% of suppliers to the UK’s event industry are facing collapse within three months unless event businesses receive further support from the government. Of those businesses, 6% said they are unlikely to make it to the end of April.
A weakening global economy will keep underlying ad-spend growth in the mid-single-digit range according to just-released forecasts from GroupM, Zenith and Magna. U.S. political advertising and other cyclical events will help offset moderating growth a little bit according to the forecasts, which are summarized below.
CEO Steven Kotok on how a legacy business model can still work in 2019. Scrappy isn’t necessarily a word you’d use to describe a publishing company that houses the two best-selling titles on U.S. newsstands, but at Bauer Media Group USA, the company’s mindset is exactly that.
WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell’s recently launched marcoms business S4Capital has reported third quarter revenue up almost 54% to £56.6m, with a nearly 50% increase in gross profit to £42.1m during the period. The figures reflect rapid organic growth as well as M&A.
Apple News Plus launched in the US and Canada in March with more than 300 titles signed up, and has now expanded to the UK and Australia. For £9.99 per month UK subscribers can access the more than 150 magazines signed up so far, including Empire, Grazia, Cosmopolitan UK, Esquire UK, Four Four Two, Hello, Q and Men’s Health UK.
The UK competition watchdog has opened an investigation into the dominance of Facebook and Google in the digital advertising market and is inviting submissions on the issue.
According to Zenith internet advertising is set to cross the 50% milestone as a proportion of global ad spend for the first time this year, despite a slight slowdown in overall adspend growth from 4.7 to 4.6% since March.
Informa Markets, a division of Informa PLC (LON:INF) formerly known as Informa Exhibitions, today introduced its new name and brand identity and launched a new corporate website, reflecting the ongoing development and expansion of the business and its focus on enabling the success of its customers and the specialist markets in which they work.
European press publishers have welcomed the passing of a new digital copyright directive that seeks to reinforce the rights of publishers and journalists online across the European Union. European Parliament passed the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive by 348 to 274 votes, a majority of 74, with 36 abstentions.
Google has been hit with a €1.49bn (£1.28bn) fine by the European Union after being accused of “illegal practices” in its advertising business. The fine relates to its use of AdSense technology to thwart competition for online ads between 2006 and 2016.
Citing a “noticeable uptick in enthusiasm for Amazon’s ad business,” Wall Street securities firm BMO Capital Markets upgraded its outlook for Amazon’s ad revenues for the fourth quarter of 2018, as well as full years 2019 and 2020.
In 2018 Amazon became the third largest digital advertising platform in the US. By 2020 the platform plans on increasing its share of total digital ad spend in the US from the current 4% to 7%.
Vogue and GQ publisher Conde Nast made a pre-tax loss of £13.5m in 2017, down from a pre-tax profit of £6.7m a year earlier. The magazine publisher, which also owns Vanity Fair, Tatler and Wired, reported turnover of £113.5m, down 7 per cent year-on-year.
Glamour magazine will cease its regular print publication starting next year with a focus on “doubling down on digital,” according to an internal email from editor-in-chief Samantha Barry. Similar to Seventeen magazine’s announcement last week, Glamour‘s print product will continue forward with a special interest issue-only model that Barry said will use print “the way our audiences do—to celebrate big moments, like Women of the Year, with special issues that are ambitious, lush, and have longevity.”
UK adspend rose 6.4% year-on-year to reach £5.6bn in Q2 2018 – the 20th consecutive quarter of market growth.
Shortlist Media is shutting its flagship men’s print title, ShortList, and renaming itself The Stylist Group as it focuses on its female “power brand” Stylist.
The Failing New York Times released its third-quarter numbers this morning and, well, if the rest of the news industry was doing this well, we could shut down Nieman Lab and grab some worry-free beach time in warmer climes. Its ongoing transition from print to digital revenue has been managed without the staffing disruption just about everyone has seen, and it continues to see significant jumps in paying digital subscribers, seven years after launching the paywall and two years after its initial Trump bump. It’s doing fine.
A European parliament committee has voted in favour of the Copyright Directive, leaving tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon in the lurch over publication rights.The directive will force online publications to pay a portion of their revenues to publishers, and take on full responsibility for any copyright infringement on the internet.
There has been a lot of doom and gloom and political in-fighting over Brexit this week as Theresa May tried to undo amendments added to the EU Withdraw Bill by the House of Lords
