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…
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…
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…
What next for David Pecker?
American Media Inc (AMI) has sold the 93-year-old sensationalist US tabloid the National Enquirer, along with the National Examiner and The Globe, to James Cohen, former owner of Hudson newsstands in US airports and rail stations. The price was $100m. The brands reportedly generate almost $30m of EBITDA (about 25% of AMI’s total profit), although…
Classy problems at The Economist
The Economist this week appointed Lara Boro, CEO of Informa Intelligence and former boss of Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), to succeed Chris Stibbs who has been CEO for the past six years. The Economist is the UK-based media company whose 175-year-old eponymous weekly “newspaper ” is widely hailed as a post-digital success with its brilliantly…
UK events group tidies up
Britain’s acquisitive Mark Allen Group (MAG) is buying 12 predominantly international, controlled circulation (free) magazines from the 28-year-old UKi Media & Events for a price believed to be £5-6m. The B2B magazines are mainly in the aviation and automotive sectors and include: Business Airport International, Aircraft Interiors International, Business Jet International and Vehicle Technology International. They…
Metropolis buys Centaur B2B finance brands
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….
