Some 4m Brits regularly watch a channel which screens old movies, TV programmes, travel features, public information films, and video clips of social history. Some are in black-and-white, some were “B” movies, and some are cinema classics from a half-forgotten world before streaming and reality TV shows. You may not have heard of Talking Pictures…
Fairfax NZ goes to MBO
Sinead Boucher, CEO of Stuff Ltd., Fairfax Media’s New Zealand subsidiary, is completing a hastily-arranged MBO from its Australian parent Nine Entertainment Company. NEC, Australia’s largest media group, had acquired Sydney-based Fairfax Media for A$1.6bn in 2018. Stuff owns New Zealand’s largest news website (launched in 2000), nine daily newspapers including The Dominion Post and…
eBay auction is hot
eBay has reportedly received initial bids of $8-10bn for its classifieds business, with interest reported to be coming from global competitors and private equity including: Axel Springer (now backed by KKR), Naspers, Adevinta (formerly part of Schibsted), and a consortium of Blackstone, Permira and Hellman & Friedman. eBay is responding to pressure from investors and…
NordStar buys Toronto Star
NordStar Capital LP is acquiring Torstar Corp, the owner of the Toronto Star newspaper, in a deal worth Can$52m / US$38m. The Toronto Star is Canada’s largest circulation daily newspaper but (not uniquely) it has struggled with the monetisation of online. The outgoing Torstar chair John Honderich said this week: “No one disputes that the business model…
Top Hat buys textbooks
Top Hat, the Canadian ed tech company, is to buy 400 textbook titles from Nelson Education Ltd, also of Canada. The educational publishing market has been growing during the Covid lockdowns. The deal is thought to be worth $30m and moves Top Hat to being a major college textbook publisher, while Nelson will concentrate on…
Intercept buys indie label
Sanwire Corp, of Los Angeles, via its Intercept Music subsidiary, is to buy North Carolina-based Art Is War Records, a record production and distribution company with a focus on independent artists. Intercept Music provides an online distribution platform for music alongside musician’s merchandise and live performance. Intercept Music
How can Time Out survive?
This report was posted before the announcement today (22 May) that Time Out Group Plc is proposing to raise £45m by way of a private share placing at 35p per share, compared with today’s 39p share price (down 5%). More than half of the new shares will be taken up by Oakley Capital, and around…
Vuuzle TV merges in Sweden
Vuuzle Media Corp, American owner of Vuuzle TV, and Swedish media company JBG Gruppen are to merge and will be based in Sweden. Vuuzle streams television shows, news, sports and feature films within what is described as ‘a social media wrapper’: “An environment compatible for users to communicate with each other on the same platforms…
What will happen to trade shows?
B2B exhibitions or trade shows have been the best performing traditional media sector for the last 20 years. The $30bn industry has thrived as an antidote to the online world, for professional and business people everywhere. Annual revenue has been growing at an average of 6% but has been higher still in China, India, Indonesia…
Ringier buys Bauer Romania
Swiss media company Ringier AG has bought the Romanian publishing interests of Bauer Media Group, of Germany. The portfolio includes TV listings titles TV Mania and TV Satelit. Ringier operates across 18 countries with 7k employees and 100 brands in publishing, digital media, and radio. The 185-year-old, Zurich-based company is family owned and has revenue/…
