Institution Research

Bauer Media Group

History:

Bauer Media group was originally founded in 1845. It was originally a small printing house in Germany and has been managed by five generations of the Bauer family, the company came to the UK in 1987 and became the countries 3rd largest publisher. The company then purchased Emap in 2007 and inherited magazines such as Grazia and Heat, as well as a number of radio stations including Kiss FM and Magic. The company now has two separate branches; H Bauer Publishing and Bauer Media.

Titles:

Bauer Media Group publishes a number of different titles. H Bauer Publishing publishes titles such as ‘Bella’ and ‘Take a Break’ whereas Bauer Media publishes titles such as ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’ As you can see by the examples below, the magazines do not follow a similar trend to one another and there is no house style shown within different titles.

Profits:

Bauer Media Group achieved revenue of 2.4 billion euros in 2013. However, profits have been falling. The German publisher, which owns more than 20 titles in the UK including Empire, Q and Zoo, saw pre-tax profits collapse by 75.7% from £57.3m to £13.9m in 2012.

Target Market:

There is no specific target market for Bauer Media’s publications because they have so many different genres of magazine, however, there are some magazines, which are specifically aimed at men or women. For example, ‘Zoo’ is aimed at men.

Future plc

History:

Chris Anderson founded future plc in 1985 under the name ‘Future Publishing’. It had one magazine ‘Amstrad Action’. They were the first company to offer free software on magazine covers. It was sold to Pearson PLC for £52.7 million in 1994, but Anderson bought it back in 1998 for £142 million.

Titles:

Future plc mainly focuses on technology and gaming genres. They publish titles such as ‘Playstation: The Official Magazine’ and ‘MacLife’. There appears to be a similar house style across the different magazines, in terms of the layout on the cover.

Profits:

Future reported a £30.6m pre-tax loss in the six months to the end of March 2014, hit by a £26m impairment charge on the value of its print asserts, as revenue fell 10.8% to £48.7m.

Target Market:

The target market of Future plc’s publishing’s is predominantly male, with the main genre of their magazines being technology and gaming. For example, ‘Playstation: The Official Magazine’ has a 90% male readership (http://brands.futureplc.com/brands/playstation-official-magazine/). Even their Film and Music genre publications have a mostly male readership, for example, ‘Guitar Techniques’; a magazine about teaching guitar has a 94% male readership, even though guitar is a multi-gender instrument (http://brands.futureplc.com/brands/guitar-techniques/).

Immediate Media Company

History:

Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a combined publishing house containing the former assets of Origin Publishing, Magicalia and BBC Magazines. It was formed on 1 November 2011 and is owned by Exponent Private Equity.

Titles:

They publish a number of different BBC magazines including ‘BBC Focus’ and ‘BBC Music’. They also publish ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Radio Times’. Every magazine has some sort of link to another, for example ‘Top Gear’ is also a tv show, shown on the BBC, and ‘Radio Times’ is a magazine that shows TV listings.

Profits:

The company made total revenues, excluding joint ventures, of £150.7m in the 12 months to 31 March 2014.

Target Market:

The primary target market of Immediate Media is definitely people who are interested in the BBC. Whether it is a certain show that has a magazine, or purely the BBC’s own magazines such as ‘BBC Focus’. Also, it would be anyone who is interested in television as most of their publications have something to do with television.