Penske Media Corporation

Penske Media Corporation
Formerly called
Velocity Services
Mail.com Media
Industry Digital media, publishing, information services
Predecessor Mail.com Media Corporation
Headquarters United States
Key people
Jay Penske (Founder-CEO)
Owner Jay Penske
(Controlling Shareholder)
Subsidiaries Deadline.com
Fairchild Fashion Media
Indiewire
Boy Genius Report
Variety
TVLine
Website pmc.com

Penske Media Corporation (PMC) is an American digital media, publishing, and information services company founded in 2003. PMC publishes more than 22 digital brands, including a joint venture in India with ZEE TV for its India.com brand. The company also produces more than 50 annual events and conferences as well as housing a research and emerging data business. PMC brands include PMC Studios, WWD, WWD.com, Footwear News, M, Deadline.com, Variety magazine, Variety.com, CricketCountry.com, HollywoodLife, Beauty Inc, GoldDerby.com, India.com, Movieline, TVLine, BGR, AwardsLine, @Hollywood, LA411, NY411, Young Hollywood Awards, The Style Awards, and Breakthrough of the Year Awards. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and New York, NY with 11 offices around the world.

History

In 2003, Jay Penske founded PMC — a business that started as Velocity Services Incorporated ("VSI"), an affinity marketing and Internet services company that later briefly operated as Interactive Digital Publishing Group.[1] The company acquired the mail.com domain, was renamed Mail.com Media Corporation ("MMC"), and re-launched the domain as a new service in 2007.[2] The company then successfully created, built, and sold (Mail.com), which was at the time the 5th largest web portal, to United Internet.

In 2008, the company raised $35 million of venture capital financing from an investor group led by Quadrangle Capital Partners.[3] In 2009 it bought Deadline Hollywood Daily, an entertainment industry insider blog, from its founder Nikki Finke, in a cash and stock earnout transaction valued at $10–15 million.[4][5][6][7]

On April 27, 2010, Mail.com Media Corp. announced it had acquired American technology blog 'Boy Genius Report' via a press release posted on Boy Genius's website.[8] The Boy Genius Report announced its intentions to relocate its website to newly acquired "www.bgr.com", which was launched in May 2010. In November 2010, the company launched TVLine.com, a consumer TV focused website, operated by co-founder and Editor in Chief Michael Ausiello, formerly of Entertainment Weekly, Oncars.com, and purchased 40% of India.com, one of the largest internet providers in Asia and which carries MMC content.

Mail.com was sold to the German company United Internet in 2010, however MMC continues to be an exclusive content provider to United Internet and the Mail.com portal, as well as to India.com, and launched a German-language version of BGR.com in March 2011.

In 2012, MMC was renamed Penske Media Corporation ("PMC").

Also in 2012, Grace Randolph's Beyond the Trailer became a part of PMC's digital network.[9][10]

In October 2012, PMC bought Variety from Reed Elsevier for an estimated $25 million.[11] On October 10, 2012, Jay Penske announced the paywall for Variety would come down, the print version would remain, and that he would invest more in the digital platform of Variety.com. Since then, PMC has continued to take steps to expand Variety, including a change from publishing five days a week to instead producing a weekly print publication, growth of its data and event businesses and launching new international editions.[12]

PMC continues to be the owner of Deadline.com, which since the 2007-08 WGA Strike has been considered Variety's largest competitor in online showbiz news.

In August 2014, PMC bought Fairchild Fashion Media, which includes Women's Wear Daily (WWD), Footwear News (FN), Beauty Inc, M and the Fairchild Summits from Condé Nast.[13]

As of 2015, PMC had attained 168 million monthly consumers.

In June 2015, Penske Media Corporation formed a partnership with Shutterstock Inc. to create and license entertainment and fashion images to the world's top media, publishing, and creative companies. Commencing in 2016, Shutterstock will have an exclusive right and license to PMC's archive.[14]

On January 18, 2016, PMC acquired independent film and television platform, Indiewire. "Bringing Indiewire into the Penske organization is an exciting opportunity to further ignite a pioneering brand while advancing its coverage of the TV industry, digital, and emerging OTT platforms." Jay Penske, PMC CEO said.[15]

References

  1. Alan Shipnuck (2004-07-14). "Hitting Cleanup". Sports Illustrated.
  2. Amit Chowdhry (2008-10-22). "Quadrangle Capital, WI Harper Group, and Novel TMT Ventures Delivers $35 Million To Mail.com". Pulse2.
  3. Don Reisinger (2008-10-21). "Mail.com lands $35 million in funding". cnet.
  4. Lauren A.E. Schuker (2009-06-24). "Hollywood Web-Site Sale Reflects Growing Clout". Wall Street Journal.
  5. Matthew Garrahan (2009-06-24). "Finke to sell Hollywood news website". Financial Times.
  6. Luft, Oliver (2009-06-24). "Deadline Hollywood blog sold for up to $15m". the Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  7. Brian Stelter (2009-06-23). "Nikki Finke, Hollywood Blogger, Gets Her Payday". New York Times.
  8. S. Geller, Jonathan (April 26, 2010). "Taking BGR to the next level — MMC acquires BGR". BGR. Retrieved May 22, 2013.
  9. "Beyond The Trailer's Grace Randolph On YouTube & The Problem With Hollywood". 12 September 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  10. West, Gillian (19 March 2013). "blinkx partners with Penske Media Corporation for memorable movie coverage". Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  11. "In a Fire Sale, Penske Media Buys Variety". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  12. Fritz, Ben; Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. "Penske Media to Buy Fairchild From Condé Nast for Nearly $100 Million". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
  13. "Condé Nast sells Women's Wear Daily, others to Penske Media". USA Today. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  14. Bond, Shannon (2015-06-22). "Shutterstock to challenge Getty Images after Variety tie-up". Financial Times. ISSN 0307-1766. Retrieved 2015-09-02.
  15. "Penske Media Acquires Indiewire". Variety. January 19, 2016. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
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