Future plc

Infobox Company

company_name = Future plc
company_type = Plc
foundation = Chris Anderson, 1985
location = Bath, England, UK
key_people = Stevie Spring,
area_served =
industry = Magazine and internet publishing
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees = 1200+
parent =
subsid =
homepage = http://www.futureplc.com/
footnotes =

Future plc (LSE|FUTR) is an international special-interest media company jointly based in Bath and London. The brand produces magazines, websites and events in a range of specialist sectors including games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography. It publishes more than 100 magazines and attracts over 11 million unique users to its websites.

History

Future Publishing was created in 1985 by an unemployed computer journalist, Chris Anderson, working with two colleagues from his house in Somerton, Somerset, England. It began with the publication of "Amstrad Action" magazine, followed by further titles, including "8000 Plus" (for the Amstrad PCW) and "PC Plus" (for PCs).cite web|url= http://www.futureplc.com/future/aboutus/history.jsp?all=1
title= Future plc - Company History
accessdate= 2007-12-09
accessmonthday=
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date= 28
year= 2006
month= August
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archivedate=] The first couple of issues bombed, but due to the delay in processing magazine returns, Chris Anderson was unaware of this. However the company was saved from bankruptcy when Chris decided to covermount a cassette on the front cover giving away software. In the days before the web and digital distribution this was a genuine innovation and the third issue sold out. The company expanded, moving to Bath in the summer of 1987. The company - by now employing two to three dozen staff - was a very early adopter of desktop publishing. The company rapidly expanded over the course of the next ten years, specialising in computing and gaming magazines. Much of this expansion was due to the formulaic nature of their operations: each page had a certain number of box outs, benefit lines and photographs. During the 1990s it launched many successful and influential titles such as gaming magazine "Edge", guide to "Tomorrow's Technology Today" "T3" (since evolved into a lifestyle technology magazine) internet title ".net" and computer design bible "Computer Arts". Another success for the company has been multiformat gaming title "GamesMaster" - launched to accompany the television series of the same name, but going on to outlast it by many years, and remaining the UK's best-selling multiformat games title.

Future enjoyed considerable success by developing specialist magazines targeted at enthusiasts, with both the writers and readers sharing the same commitment and knowledge of the subject matter. This approach hit its zenith with cult gaming title "Amiga Power", a magazine that cheerfully attacked its own advertisers and other magazines within Future. Regrettably, if unsurprisingly, this style was not duplicated in other titles, but the company has remained focused on producing specialist titles for narrow audience segments.

Founder Chris Anderson sold his majority stake in the company in 1994, moving to San Francisco to develop GP Publications, a small US magazine company bought by Future in 1993. Future was bought by Pearson New Entertainment Europe. Several successful titles were launched in the following years including "Total Film" and "Playstation: The Official Magazine" - the company's biggest success story, becoming the third best-selling men's magazine in the UK - but Pearson struggled to achieve its goals and in 1998 was put up for sale. The company at that time comprised of Future and French publisher Edicorp, both of which were acquired in a management buyout by the Future board. Chris Anderson backed the buyout and returned as non-executive chairman.

Ensuing success

The company expanded rapidly, opening offices or buying existing companies in Germany, Italy and Poland. It entered the US market with the purchase of Imagine Media - the renamed company Anderson developed when he first left Future.

Due to its specialisation in computing and internet titles, the company was an enthusiastic adopter of internet publishing during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, launching numerous websites based around its magazine titles and online-focused magazines such as "Internet Works", "Business 2.0", and the world's first email magazine "Future Gamer". Buoyed by its association with the internet and computing, the company floated on the Stock Exchange in 2000 and the share price rocketed to around £9. The success did not last, with share price and profits crashing as the dot-com bubble burst. The company avoided bankruptcy by a rights issue, large-scale redundancies, the sale of "Business 2.0" to AOL Time Warner and the sale or closure of its offices in Germany and Poland.

Following several years of consolidation, Future embarked on a new expansion campaign in 2003, acquiring established companies and individual magazines in the UK, France, and the US including "PC Zone", "Revolver", and "Pregnancy and Baby". The company also launched into the children's market with new licensed magazines for the "JETIX" television channel, and the official "Duel Masters" magazine based on the popular trading card game. In 2005 Future bought 38 titles from "Highbury House" , including Fast Bikes and "Fast Car" magazine, after the "Competition Commission" blocked an attempt to buy the company outright, citing a potential monopoly in games magazines.

The company has specialised in producing officially-licenced titles and now produces the official titles for all three major console manufacturers in both the US and the UK. Its customer publishing arm, FuturePlus, also producers content for a number of clients.

Into the new millennium

With the appointment of a new CEO in 2006, Stevie Spring, the company has embarked on a strategy of focusing on six key themes: focusing on basics, core, geography, partnerships, audience and online.

With this focus, it has sold or closed more than 50 under-performing magazine titles and disposed of its Italian and French operations to concentrate on its English-language offering. Future licenses its magazine content to local publishers in more than 30 international territories and is currently one of the world's biggest exporters of licensed content.

Online, the company has invested and engaged in a rapid expansion of digital activities, most recently with the launches of Techradar.com, a computing and consumer electronics site and Musicradar.com, a site for music-makers.

It has grown its partnership publishing activity through its custom publisher, FuturePlus and its official partnerships with clients including Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sky and BT.

The current CEO of Future PLC is Stevie Spring who took over from Greg Ingham in 2006. The current Chief Executive of Future UK is Robert Price, who took over from Colin Morrison (formerly MD and COO) in 2004. The corporate motto is "Media with Passion."

Controversy

Several Future owned magazines have come under scrutiny for their starkly gleaming reviews of games that otherwise garnered a universally poor reception. The best known incident of this was after the release of Atari's Driver 3, which was given a score of 9/10 by two Future plc publishings - OPM and PSM2, despite overwhelming disappointment within the general gaming community. Editors later conceded that a deal had been done with Atari's marketing department to grant the score in exchange for exclusive pre-released access to the game's unfinished code. Gamers have also noted Official Playstation Magazine's endless 10/10 streak for the Tombraider series, as well as the 9/10 given to the Phantom Menace.

Key titles

Key magazine titles published by Future Publishing include:
* "Classic Rock"
* "Computer Arts"
* "Cross Stitcher"
* "Digital Camera"
* "digitalFOTO Magazine"
* "DVD and Blu-ray Review magazine"
* "Edge"
* "Fast Car Magazine"
* "Fast Bikes Magazine"
* "GamesMaster
* "Guitar Techniques"
* "Guitarist"
* Guitar World
* "ImagineFX
* "Linux Format"
* "MacFormat"
* "Metal Hammer"
* "Mountain Biking UK
* ".net"
* "NGamer"
* "PaperCraft Inspirations"
* "PC Answers"
* "PC Format"
* "PC Gamer" (UK and US editions)
* "PC Plus"
* "PC Zone"
* "Rhythm"
* "Scrapbook Inspirations"
* "SFX"
* "Simply Knitting"
* "T3"
* "Total Film"*
* "Total Guitar"
* "What Satellite and Digital TV"
* "Xbox World"
* "You Can Craft"
* "Your Family Tree"

Future also holds the official license for magazines from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to publish titles such as:
* "Official Nintendo Magazine" (UK)
* "Official UK PlayStation Magazine" (UK)
* "Official PlayStation 2 Magazine" (UK)
* "Xbox: The Official Magazine" (US & UK)
* "Xbox360: The Official Magazine" (US & UK)
* "Windows XP: The Official Magazine" (France & UK)
* ""
* "WPT Poker: The Official Magazine of the World Poker Tour"

Key websites

Key online sites published by Future Publishing include:

* "BikeRadar" [http://www.bikeradar.com link]
* "MusicRadar.com" [http://www.musicradar.com link]
* ".net" [http://www.netmag.co.uk link]
* "Games Radar" [http://www.gamesradar.com link]
* "ComputerAndVideoGames.com" [http://www.computerandvideogames.com link]
* "Next Generation" [http://www.next-gen.biz link]
* "T3" [http://www.t3.com link]
* "Total Film" [http://www.totalfilm.com link]
* "Digital Camera" [http://www.dcmag.co.uk link]
* "" [http://www.windowsvistamagazine.co.uk link]

Popular defunct titles

*Amstrad Action
*Amiga Format
*Amiga Power
*Arcane
*Commodore Format
*DC-UK
*Digital Video
*MEGA
*PC Accelerator
*New Computer Express
*NGC Magazine
*Playstation Max
*PlayStation Power
*Sega Power
*ST/Amiga Format
*ST Format
*Super Play
*Total!
*Ultra Game Players
*Your Sinclair

References

External links

* [http://www.futurenet.com/futureonline Future Publishing official website]
* [http://www.futureplc.com Future - Holding Company for Future Publishing UK and Future US]