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- Colin Morrison - 19 May 2019
BandLab buys NME in “£7m deal”
Singapore-based music-making platform BandLab Technologies, which last year acquired Guitar and MusicTech magazines, is increasing its investment in media by buying New Musical Express (NME) and Uncut from TI Media (formerly Time Inc UK). NME was one of the UK’s oldest music weeklies and (copying America’s Billboard) became the first to publish the record charts…
All media
- Colin Morrison - 18 May 2019
Why Discovery bought a magazine
Discovery Inc, of the US, has acquired the monthly magazine Golf Digest from Condé Nast in a deal estimated to be worth $30-35m. Discovery is making a push into golf entertainment with a 12-year, $2bn PGA Tour contract, a content deal with resurgent champion Tiger Woods, and its GolfTV streaming service which offers instruction, equipment…
News brands
- Colin Morrison - 11 May 2019
How Axel Springer changed everything
The Berlin-based Axel Springer is selling its 51% share in the @Leisure Group, of Amsterdam, a rental company which offers more than 100,000 holiday homes across 50 countries. The buyer is OYO Hotels & Homes which is paying Springer €180m – equivalent to 15 x EBITDA – for the company which generated €24m profit in…
Latest MediaDeals
Tarsus exhibitions to go private for £668m
Events. Charterhouse private equity (until last year the majority owner of French exhibitions group Comexposium) has made an agreed bid of £668m (including the assumption of debt) to take the UK quoted Tarsus Group private. The price is said to be 17 x EBITDA of the last two years, although one analyst (suggesting the possibility of…
Who really wants ‘all you can eat’ reading?
All media. As sales of iphones, ipads and macbooks slow, Apple is is rapidly moving into the content business. Its video streaming challenger to Netflix is coming soon. But first comes Apple News+, the revamped Apple News which incorporates Texture (“the Netflix of magazines”) which was acquired last year from publishers Condé Nast, Rogers Media, Meredith,…
Nine sells Aussie sports events
Events. Australia’s Nine Entertainment Company (NEC) is selling many of the events acquired as part of its A$4bn Fairfax Media deal last year. The Ironman Group, of China, is paying A$31m for five sports events including The Sun-Herald City2Surf and The Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon, while the division’s seven business and food events (including the Night…
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Folio magazine
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David Sillito, Media Correspondent, BBC News
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Highlights from Flashes & Flames
Who said print media was dead?
Let’s get it straight: newspapers and magazines will not be killed off by online media. But there will certainly be some deaths. Many titles will eventually close, many more will have to accept much lower levels of profitability, but some traditional publishers will be able to create substantial digital businesses, quite different from their existing…
Gina Rinehart may soon be world’s richest person – and is into media
Australians frequently refer to their nation’s “two speed” economy, which emphasises the commodities boom that has kept recession away for 20 years and counting. It also helps to explain the rising importance of the mining economies of Western Australia and Queensland in a country long dominated by the ‘old’ south eastern cities of Sydney and Melbourne,…
