Primedia and Brill Form `Media Central'; Primedia Combines Media Industry-Related Titles Into One Group; Brill is Named CEO of `Media Central'

Business Wire, Jan 4, 2001

Business/Entertainment Editors & High Tech Writers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 4, 2001

Primedia (NYSE:PRM) Chairman and CEO Tom Rogers announced today that it is combining its 172 newsletters, magazines, Web sites, conferences, databases and other products that focus on the media industry into a new subsidiary called Media Central. Additionally, Brill Media Holdings (BMH) -- the company founded by Steven Brill that runs Brill's Content magazine and Contentville.com, the recently launched e-commerce venture -- has a minority interest in Primedia's Media Central. Steven Brill has been named chairman and chief executive officer of Media Central. Media Central is a subsidiary of Primedia and will be overseen by David Ferm, president of the Primedia B2B Group.

Primedia properties to be included in Media Central include Kagan World Media, Folio Magazine and the related trade shows, American Demographics, Cable World, Simba, MediaCentral.com and Circulation Management. (A complete listing of all properties is included at the end of this release.)

Media Central has also taken a minority interest in the properties of Brill Media Holdings, majority ownership and control of which will remain with Steven Brill and the BMH partners.

"The rationale for this venture is as compelling as it is obvious," said Primedia Chairman and CEO Tom Rogers. "By virtue of a variety of transactions over the years, including our recent purchase of Kagan World Media, Primedia has gathered in one company, but in different corners of the company, the single best collection of information resources for people in the media business on subjects ranging from book publishing to high-tech advertising, to satellite television distribution, to magazine publishing, to cable television, to sports marketing."

"At a time when the media business is expanding and the old boundaries that separated these industries are rapidly disappearing," Rogers continued, "it makes sense to put all of these products under one roof and one proven leader. Steve Brill is that leader. He has the editorial sensibility and the entrepreneurial skills to take our media properties to the next level and make them even more valuable and successful than they already are. Steve's first success was in trade publishing, when he created and built The American Lawyer and then an array of other publications and products, including Court TV, related to the law. And now he's also built the leading publication examining the media industry itself -- Brill's Content."

"The combining of the Media Central products creates enormous potential," Brill said. "And much of that potential can be realized by getting the talented people who produce them all into one organization where all can be focused on becoming the leading source of news about the media industry and all can be encouraged to come up with new product offerings, cross market their products, and share some of what they do across various titles, not to mention contribute to a common Web site, MediaCentral.com, that will also benefit from material produced by the staff of Brill's Content."

"The premise of selling to Primedia in November was to build the foundation of an integrated approach to covering the media business, coupled with the other B2B media properties that Primedia owns," said Paul Kagan. "This initiative puts this enormously strong portfolio of resources under one umbrella to execute the strategic design."

"We also intend to use the editorial talent at the Media Central trade publications to provide additional expertise to every area we cover at Brill's Content and vice versa," Brill explained, noting that Brill's Content is a 400,000 circulation magazine for people who are both consumers of media, as well as for journalists and other content creators. "To take an obvious example," Brill continued, "the magazine is always interested in explaining how the decisions book publishers make affect books that ultimately end up in bookstores for consumers to buy. Similarly, we do stories all the time about the business of the various cable networks. Now, we'll be able to call on the expertise of the journalists who produce the newsletter Book Publishing Report to help us with the Books Section of Brill's Content, or get the experts at Kagan providing valuable data and research to Cable World to help us with ideas and stories related to the cable networks. We will also be able to draw upon the unique insights into consumer trends from American Demographics and how they may affect the issues Folio: and Circulation Management cover in the magazine industry."

"In all," Brill continued, "we'll have an unprecedented collection of some 160 journalists in one enterprise dedicated to providing the best possible information about media and the media business."

"Media Central will offer clients a unique opportunity to reach media professionals with unique content, research, advertising and trade shows and conferences," said David Ferm. "This is exactly the type of fusion package advertisers are seeking."