Media 1998 - Company News Summary

Emap has launched a £720m takeover bid for Petersen Companies, which will enable it to achieve its ambition of entering the US magazine market.
16-Dec-1998

Granada is acquiring Artist Services, the Australian programme maker, in order to obtain a base to expand into the southern hemisphere.
11-Dec-1998

Guiton Group of Jersey and the Guernsey Press Company are to merge to create a combined newspaper group for the Channel Islands.
10-Dec-1998

Chrysalis is to launch the Galaxy FM dance music radio station from two centres in Middlesbrough and Newcastle next summer, creating up to 70 jobs.
08-Dec-1998

Highchase of London has acquired Impala Designs, the Ipswich-based display and advertising sign company.
25-Nov-1998

Daily Mail & General Trust is acquiring Radio Mercury, which broadcasts in Reigate and Crawley, from Independent Radio for £3.7m.
21-Nov-1998

City of London PR Group is to acquire Boswell City Financial PR for undisclosed terms.
21-Nov-1998

Direct Network Publishing is acquiring Symphony Telecommunications, the supplier of premium-rate information services, for £10m.
21-Nov-1998

Dialog is acquiring Write Works, the Oxford-based developer of online purchasing systems, for up to £6.3m.
20-Nov-1998

IBC is to merge with LLP Group, the publisher of Lloyd's List, to create a £315m business publishing group called Informa.
20-Nov-1998

WPP Group has bought Performers Group, the Belgian healthcare specialist with annual sales of $4m.
19-Nov-1998

Media Business, the advertising sales company, is to be acquired by MediaCom, a division of Grey Advertising of the US, for £28m.
18-Nov-1998

Prism Leisure, the home entertainment wholesaler, is to be acquired by Linkwill, a newly-formed unquoted company, in a £6.5m deal.
12-Nov-1998

Columbus Group is buying EFM Publishing, the publisher of the European Fund Manager magazine, for up to £2m.
12-Nov-1998

Mail Marketing, the Bedminster-based direct marketing company, is planning to open a call centre in Bristol which will employ up to 100 people.
10-Nov-1998

Taylor & Francis is acquiring Routledge Publishing, the academic publisher, for £90m.
05-Nov-1998

Trinity, the regional newspaper company, has sold its US operation to a management team for £34m.
05-Nov-1998

BSkyB is to recruit a further 1,200 staff at its Scottish call centre as well as an extra 500 engineers in order to cope with demand for its new digital TV service.
31-Oct-1998

Reuters has acquired Agence de Presse Medicale, the French medical news service, for undisclosed terms.
27-Oct-1998

IPC has acquired Link House Media, the magazine publisher, for undisclosed terms.
14-Oct-1998

Harmsworth Publishing of Cambridge has acquired Landmark Information Group, the Exeter-based provider of site-specific land and property information.
12-Oct-1998

Kingston Communications has bought Teleport London International, the broadcaster of TV and radio programmes to Armed Forces throughout the world, for £10m, in order to gain a foothold in the digital TV revolution.
29-Sep-1998

Incepta, the owner of Citigate, has acquired Dewe Rogerson, the public relations and marketing company, for £27m and the new group will be called Citigate Dewe Rogerson.
22-Sep-1998

More Group has acquired Sirocco, the French outdoor advertising company, for £52m, and will use it as a base to expand into other European countries.
22-Sep-1998

Comtel is to recruit an additional 50 customer service advisers in Reading to cope with an increase in calls from cable TV customers.
21-Sep-1998

Tempus is acquiring VSM Media, the US media communications company, for up to £8.7m.
10-Sep-1998

Scottish Media Group is set to acquire VCI, the video publisher, for £31m, although a rival bidder may emerge.
09-Sep-1998

Photobition, the media services provider, is acquiring Katz Digital Technologies, the US digital graphics company, for £30m.
03-Sep-1998

Scottish Media has acquired TAS Publishing, the trade journal publisher, for £3.1m.
29-Aug-1998

Reed Elsevier is selling its illustrated books division to management for £33m, and the new business will be called Octopus Publishing Group.
24-Aug-1998

Pearson has sold Register Group, the provider of advertising data, to Emap and Extreme Information for £12m.
20-Aug-1998

Sanctuary Group is to acquire Ted D Bear Group for about £2m as part of a strategy to become Europe's largest independent operator of music facilities.
17-Aug-1998

Abbott Mead Vickers, the advertising agency, is linking up with BBDO Worldwide to acquire Irish International Communications for an initial £3.8m.
14-Aug-1998

WPP has acquired Barry Gowers Advertising, the London-based healthcare agency, for an initial £0.7m.
11-Aug-1998

Chrysalis Group is acquiring Choice FM Birmingham, the dance music radio station, for £6m.
25-Jul-1998

Reuters has bought the fund information service of Lipper Analytical Services of the US for undisclosed terms, as part of a strategy to move into the funds data business.
24-Jul-1998

Hurst Publishing, the publisher of Auto Trader magazine, has been acquired by the BC Partners venture capital group for £260m, and a trade sale or flotation could follow later.
23-Jul-1998

Interpublic of the US is set to acquire International Public Relations, the UK owner of the Shandwick advertising agency, in a £104m all-share deal.
18-Jul-1998

Sleepy Kids, the animation company, is to merge with three other media companies - Clipper Films, Ridgeway Films, and the Richard Digance Card Company - to create a new group called InkLine.
17-Jul-1998

Medialink Worldwide of the US is acquiring London Bureau, the UK TV consultancy and photographic agency, for £5m.
16-Jul-1998

Mirror Group has acquired the Derry Journal newspaper in Northern Ireland for £18.2m, as part of a strategy to strengthen its position in regional newspapers.
09-Jul-1998

ICC, the business information company, is acquiring Market Assessment Publications for undisclosed terms, which will enable it to offer customers a wider range of titles and more detailed research in a number of industry sectors.
03-Jul-1998

Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments is planning a reverse takeover of Tring, the lossmaking budget music company, in a £8m deal, and will then look for a number of additional acquisitions.
03-Jul-1998

NTL has acquired two cable TV operators - ComTel and Diamond Cable - for a total £1.4bn, in a further rationalisation of the sector that has seen the number of companies fall from 24 to five in the past five years.
17-Jun-1998

Carlton Communications has acquired a 50% stake in Central de Video, the Mexican video cassette maker, for £9m.
12-Jun-1998

Carlton Communications has acquired National Screen Service, the distributor of promotional material on films to UK cinemas, from its management for £2.2m.
12-Jun-1998

Saatchi & Saatchi is selling its Siegel & Gale corporate identity consultancy in the US to management in a £20m deal.
09-Jun-1998

WPP has acquired Conway/Milliken & Associates, the US customer research company, as part of a strategy to expand its information and consultancy operations.
04-Jun-1998

Lopex, the marketing and communications group, is acquiring Compass Marketing, the loyalty schemes specialist, for £2.7m.
01-Jun-1998

DreamWorks SKG of Hollywood is to set up a film production company in London, and will invest £30m a year in the venture.
22-May-1998

Pearson is acquiring Simon & Schuster, the US publisher, from Viacom for £2.75bn, and will retain the educational publishing side of the business and sell the remainder to Hicks Muse.
18-May-1998

British Digital Broadcasting is appointing British Telecom to manage the customer call centre for its pay-television services, which will create an initial 100 jobs rising to over 1,000.
08-May-1998

Capital Radio has acquired Red Dragon Radio, which operates two Welsh radio stations, from Emap for £18.2m.
08-May-1998

Pearson has acquired Pasha Publications, the publisher of newsletters on the energy sector, for $18m.
08-May-1998

Capital Radio has acquired XFM, the London pop music radio station, for £16m.
02-May-1998

Reed Elsevier is acquiring two US legal publishing businesses from Times Mirror for £980m - Matthew Bender and the remaining 50% of Shepard's Company.
28-Apr-1998

Pearson has sold its Future Publishing consumer magazines business to a management team backed by Apax Partners for £142m.
25-Apr-1998

WPP is acquiring Goldfarb Corporation, the Canadian marketing research consultancy, for £24m.
24-Apr-1998

Channel Four is to create 61 new jobs to prepare for the introduction of digital TV and to cope with the increase in the number of programmes being commissioned.
23-Apr-1998

Carlton Communications is to invest £20m in the creation of a new company called Carlton Online, which will develop a number of new internet businesses and create 30 jobs.
23-Apr-1998

Maverick, the US record label, is planning to open a London operation in the next six months.
22-Apr-1998

Eastern Counties Newspapers is acquiring Home Counties Newspapers for £58m, thereby beating off a £60m approach from Southnews.
22-Apr-1998

NTL is to acquire NetChannel UK, the interactive TV business, for about $1m in order to offer home shopping services and internet access to cable TV subscribers.
16-Apr-1998

Telewest Communications has finalised terms for the £649m acquisition of General Cable, the fifth largest cable TV operator.
16-Apr-1998

Kingfisher has acquired F-Beat Records, the owner of the Demon Records music company, for about £2m.
07-Apr-1998

Tele-Cine Cell, the post-production company, is to be acquired by Todd-AO of the US for £10m.
07-Apr-1998

Birchin International is raising £1.4m in a share offer in order to fund the acquisition of Swinton Castle, as it transforms its business from book publishing to residential training.
30-Mar-1998

WPP Group has bought two US marketing consultancies - Charles Rivers Strategies and MSC Channel Research and Consulting.
26-Mar-1998

Abbott Mead Vickers has sold its Leagas Delaney advertising agency to management for £4m.
26-Mar-1998

Newsquest Media has acquired Property Weekly, the publisher of property advertising newspapers, for £2.5m.
12-Mar-1998

Mirror Group is selling its 46% stake in The Independent to Independent Newspapers for £3m, but will retain a contract to print and distribute the newspapers for the next five years.
12-Mar-1998

Camden Graphics, the greeting cards company, is being acquired by American Greetings of the US for undisclosed terms.
11-Mar-1998

Reed Elsevier has called off its £17bn merger with Wolters Kluwer, following an attempt by Wolters to renegotiate terms because of fears that the European Commission would force the combined group to dispose of a large part of the tax and legal publishing business.
10-Mar-1998

More Group is to be acquired by Clear Channel Communications of the US for £446m, which will create the largest outdoor advertising company in the world.
06-Mar-1998

Pearson has sold its law and tax publishing business to Thomson Corp for £70m.
03-Mar-1998

United News & Media has sold United Provincial Newspapers, the publisher of the Yorkshire Post, to Candover Investments for £360m, and its Spanish regional publishing operation to Hebdo Mag International for £43m.
28-Feb-1998

Emap is to acquire London-based Melody Radio for £25m, but will have to sell its Cardiff radio stations to comply with regulations on radio ownership.
27-Feb-1998

Southnews is acquiring the southern regional newspapers business of United News & Media for £47.5m.
19-Feb-1998

Cementone is acquiring ITE, the international trade show business, for £65m, and will change its name to ITE Group.
18-Feb-1998

CSI, the TV sports rights marketing company, has been acquired by Interpublic of the US for undisclosed terms.
10-Feb-1998

Getty Communications has acquired Allsport, the sports photographic agency, for £18m, and will use the business to sell images via the internet.
09-Feb-1998

A new company called Dataforce has been created to acquire two direct mail companies - Mailforce Group and Eros Marketing Support Services - for £14.5m.
05-Feb-1998

Daily Mail & General Trust is about to acquire Essex Radio, in which it already holds 27%, in a deal that values the local radio company at £21m.
22-Jan-1998

PolyGram of the Netherlands is said to be planning to set up a visual special effects unit in London, to be used initially for its forthcoming Thunderbirds film.
22-Jan-1998

Reed Elsevier has sold IPC Magazines, the UK's largest publisher of consumer magazines, to a management team for £860m in order to focus on business and scientific publications.
06-Jan-1998