The Global Media Weekly for executives and entrepreneurs

Future buys CinemaBlend

Future Plc, the fastest growing magazine-media company on both sides of the Atlantic, has acquired CinemaBlend, an online entertainment publisher from Gateway Blend for a price of $12.75m (£9.9m).

The 17-year-old CinemaBlend provides online forums for TV and film fans. It more than doubled its audience to almost 20m monthly uniques in the first half of this year, expanding the reach of Future‘s entertainment verticals which already have 46m online users. The CinemaBlend growth is believed to have accelerated during the pandemic, with 28m uniques in June.

CinemaBlend was founded in 2003 by Josh Tyler who sold it to Gateway in 2015.

The acquisition is expected to boost the recent launch of Future’s website whattowatch.com and also its big-selling weekly TV listings brands in the UK. CinemaBlend revenues were $3.1m in 2019 (15% up on the previous year).

The Missouri-based Gateway Blend (formerly Gateway Media) operates a digital portfolio including Brainjet, Minq, Odometer and Oola that are claimed to reach more than 55M users each month.

Future Plc