LinkedIn post from Matt2 Aug 2024 16:55
“I feel like I’ve blinked and it’s gone! I swear each year goes faster.
It’s 12 months since THG bought City AM, with questions rightly asked as to THG’s intentions for such a prominent business news publication.
I was on holiday when I asked Rebecca Dixon for a Teams call. She was running a small media business in THG, called Preloved, and had quickly proved herself to be a real talent. Despite having minimal resources, she'd made the role her own, improving performance where others previously struggled.
On the call, I asked Rebecca to step up and help manage the City AM acquisition that would soon be announced. She jumped at it, telling me she was more than ready for the challenge and that, as full-time working mum of 2 young children, nothing much fazed her.
On announcing the deal, the first thing we did was invest. Harry Owen was recruited to head up City AM and asked to rapidly build out quality business content at a time when most media outlets were cutting content. 12 new journalists joined and a national news desk launched in Manchester.
Rebecca then had THG Ingenuity replace all City AM tech and hardware, rebuilding the website, and launching its first ever mobile app. The quarterly CityAM magazine was relaunched, with high-profile front-page interviews, including Prime Minister Kier Starmer.
It’s been bumpy, these things always are. But the investment is showing signs of paying off. Monthly unique users have grown from 1m at acquisition to 2.5m today, providing broader audiences for THG’s partners, including our own brands such as LOOKFANTASTIC.COM, Cult Beauty & Myprotein.
Now that City AM has built a clear market leading content proposition, we’ve been exploring partnerships to further scale the reach of City AM. Last week, we took a major step by agreeing a deal between THG and Reach plc.
Under the deal, City AM branded business content is now appearing in both print and online across Reach’s major titles, including Daily Express, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo. Reach is Britain's largest newspaper, magazine and digital publisher, reaching 38.6million people every month.
This is an exciting milestone, with Reach contributing to the cost of producing CityAM’s content in return for Reach’s vast print and digital audiences accessing CityAM’s daily business and finance content.
Within just 12 months, Rebecca and Harry have guided CityAM from the brink to now becoming Britain’s No1 business media outlet. For the journalists working 24/7 to cover global business news, their content is now served up to a huge global audience – which has to be a big motivation.
City AM still has a long road ahead to fulfil its potential. Yes, the last 12 months went in a blink, but we’re well on our way. And, with THG now the UK’s No 1 publisher of business news……well that brings a smile to a few faces 😉”
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