HEALTH OF BUSINESS
THE HEALTH OF FUTURE’S BUSINESS
After a string of poor financial performances, Future is about to dramatically re-shape its business, and not even its biggest and most respected brands are safe. Christopher Dring asks what’s next for the company and what does this all mean about the state of games media?
F
uture as a publishing empire is crumbling.
And after posting a loss
of more than £30m for the first half of the year, it is taking drastic action to rescue its business. It is selling its bike, sports and craft titles for £24m, it plans to cut 170 employees from its roster in the UK, and for us in games, it is proposing to cut many of its most iconic websites. The most surprising is its plans to end CVG, a brand that is now 33 years-old and is considered one of the foremost websites for games news. But there are also plans to close Edge Online, plus the websites for all of the Official magazines - PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo. The idea is to create one ‘super- website’ under the Gamesradar name, which is a bigger games media brand in the US, if not quite in the UK. Meanwhile,
its declining print business will undergo changes, too, with all games magazines moving from London to its Bath HQ. “Once the consultation period is
want it – online, on mobile, in print and beyond. “We are a leader in tablet content sales, have over 58m people consuming our online offering
Once the consultation period is over Future will
be stronger and a more focussed business. Nial Ferguson, Future
over, Future will be a stronger and more focussed business,” Future’s UK MD Nial Ferguson tells MCV. “This is not a tactical cost- cutting process. It’s a strategic transformation to ensure that we are delivering to our growing audience and providing effective solutions for our commercial partners. “Future’s strategy has
always been to connect our highly engaged audience to world-class content wherever our consumers
every month and we continue to evolve our content strategy to suit our consumers’ needs.”
IS DIGITAL BROKEN? Future boss Zillah Byng-Maddick told staff in an email last month that Future’s business model was not working hard enough. The company is struggling to replicate its former print success in the same way across digital platforms. It has invested a lot of time and money in launching websites, iPad magazines and the like, and it is attracting audiences. Yet advertisers remain wary, and the number of ‘eyeballs’ that Future is
attracting is not translating into income. “Big traffic numbers can be important and could well signal success, but they don’t paint the full picture,” says Rupert Loman, CEO of Gamer Network which operates Eurogamer, amongst others. “Engagement is hugely important
- things like trust, editorial credibility and community all play a part. And when talking about advertising, creativity and the environment for marketing messages can often be overlooked when just focusing on a headline number.” Future actually agrees with this.
Ferguson says: “Our commercial partners have a range of needs. From building awareness of a new console launch, to driving pre- orders of a new game, collecting insight, driving social media followers or creating greater consumer engagement. We have strong relationships with our commercial partners, who know how important it is to be able to connect with Future’s highly engaged audience.” The challenge when creating a
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‘highly engaged audience’ is how much that costs. CVG and its sister sites have large editorial teams, several layers of management and plenty of investment.
2004/2005
FUTURE’S UK games magazine circulation rises 5.7 per cent to 656,654 readers in 2004. Official PlayStation 2 Magazine is selling 170,000 magazines a month alone. In March 2005, Future acquires 38 magazines from Highbury for £30.5m. Online magazine store,
Myfavouritemagazines.co.uk, generates £250,000 in its first month.
June 6th 2014 10 2006/2007
FUTURE issues profit warning after poor sales of car magazines, women’s interest publications and some games titles. Greg Ingham steps down as CEO of Future.
www.mcvuk.com
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