Metropolis Group, of the UK, has acquired the financial information division of Centaur Media for £5m in cash. The deal involves the advertising-led Money Marketing and Mortgage Strategy, and the subscriptions-based Platforum, Taxbriefs and Headline Money. The five brands made 2018 operating profit of £1.2m on revenues of £8.2m. The revenue (some one-third of which…
How e-commerce wrecked 106-year-old US specialist publisher
We all know it. This can be a golden time for specialist media produced by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. Niche publishers might still lose advertising to Facebook and Google, and copy sales to the free web. But these passionate, focused audiences can become buyers of more than magazines, books and digital information: e-commerce can provide new…
Can Tortoise startup compete in UK news race?
What’s the future of the news business? As if the continuous bleeding of daily newspapers was not enough, the bright young things of digital news are also in crisis. Thousands of people have been laid-off at BuzzFeed, Vice, Vox, Mic, and Huffington Post. It is easy to see that news has become a much smaller business…
How B2B digs deep in a post-advertising world
The internet demands media specialisation, whether in content, delivery or audience. Arguably, that’s a reversal from the heyday of print media when advertising often upstaged copy sales, relegated readers and pushed for ever larger audiences because that produced even more ads. Free “promotional” copies, constrained cover prices, and non-core readers were, perversely, good for profits….
Dennis US acquires Kiplinger
Dennis Publishing, the UK-owned publisher of the best-selling news digest The Week, in the UK and US, has acquired the 99-year-old Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Kiplinger publishes the eponymous paid-subscription newsletters in business and personal finance. Its most widely-read products are: Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, the 600k-circulation monthly magazine which is credited with having pioneered US…
Haymarket bounces back
The US subsidiary of Haymarket Media Group has acquired the Florida-based National Association for Continuing Education (NACE) which provides live and online education programs for doctors. Although financials have not been disclosed, it is believed to have revenues of under $10m and will increase Haymarket’s medical information revenues by 10%. NACE annually organises 40 regional…
Hearst searches for life after magazines
Hearst Magazines, of the US, has acquired the Clevver YouTube news channels aimed at millennial women, which self-describes as “the intersection of pop culture and internet culture”. The channels were owned by the now-defunct Defy Media which once boasted almost $50m revenue. The deal brings together Clevver’s claimed audience of over 15m subscribers (or at…
‘Easyfairs for sale’
After two years of intensifying M&A, another of the world’s leading exhibitions groups, the Brussels-based Easyfairs, is believed to be up for sale. The private company owns 218 events in 18 countries across Europe, the UK, China, Russia, UAE, and the US. It is estimated to have revenues of some €180m and EBITDA of €35m….
Will FT buy The Information?
The Nikkei-owned, UK-based Financial Times is believed to be negotiating to acquire or invest in The Information, the subscription-based digital media company founded by Jessica Lessin in 2013. The Information derives some 90% of its revenue from subscriptions (the rest from events) and more than 10,000 subscribers pay $399 for a service which now employs…
B2B back to the future?
It is over 70 years since Norman Cahners, the legendary US creator of B2B magazines and trade shows, introduced the world to ‘controlled circulation’. The concept of qualifying free circulation and ads-supported publishing came to account for so much of the growth in the 20th century heyday of B2B magazines, especially in the US and…
