Immediate Media celebrates first anniversary

By Nick Batten, mediaweek.co.uk, Monday, 05 November 2012 11:55AM

Magazine publisher Immediate Media has celebrated its first anniversary following the sale of BBC Magazines to private equity company Exponent.

Tom Bureau: chief executive of Immediate Media,

The creation of Immediate Media followed the clearance by the OFT of the purchase of non-BBC-branded magazines and rights to publish BBC-branded titles under licensing and contract publishing arrangements to Exponent.

Magazines published include Top Gear, Gardeners' World, BBC History, Lonely Planet and Focus.

In January, Immediate Media purchased You & Your Wedding and Prima Baby & Pregnancy magazines from Hearst Magazines.

Tom Bureau, chief executive of Immediate Media, said: "It's been a highly successful first year for us. We've launched the new business, restructured and consolidated three companies into one, hired a bunch of great talent, moved office in London, and through all that, the business has performed really strongly.

"Our magazine business is extremely robust and outperforming the market. At the last round of ABCs, our titles were market leader in almost every category we contest. We've also launched six new magazines and expanded our portfolio through acquisitions in parenting, weddings and craft."

Bureau added: "Digitally, our web business continues to grow quickly, and in mobile, our digital content revenue is growing fast, and we are now the second largest publisher in the app market. In fact, our apps are now downloaded 16 times every minute."

The company recently launched its magazine portfolio on the Kindle Fire – a move that was timed for the European launch of the Kindle Fire tablet and Kindle Fire HD.

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk