February saw the power of partnership, with Kantar Media joining up with PRgloo in the UK, and GlobalNews Group forming a joint venture with Ninestars. Meanwhile, Scroll acquired Nuzzel, and Cision released its earnings and announced leadership changes.
Scroll acquires Nuzzel
Scroll, the not yet launched ad-free news subscription service, has acquired the news aggregator Nuzzel, for an undisclosed sum. Nuzzel’s Media Intelligence service, which was targeted at professionals, will be spun off. Nuzzel’s management and founders have left the company. Scroll has also announced a partnership with Mozilla to explore ad-free news browsing. With $US 10 million in funding, Scroll seems to be one to watch.
GlobalNews partners with Ninestars
GlobalNews Group, the Latin American monitoring and measurement leader, has announced a joint venture with India’s Ninestars. The newly formed venture will create up to 100 jobs in Argentina, and focus on the large scale digitisation of Latin American news content.
Kantar Media partner with PRGloo
Kantar Media has announced a partnership with media management software provider PRgloo. The partnership will give Kantar’s UK & Ireland customers access to PRgloo’s platform to manage their media relations with journalists and influencers. The partnership finally gives Kantar Media clients a journalist database in the UK, something that’s been missing from its offering.
European Copyright Directive
European institutions have released details of the long-awaited Copyright Directive. Much of the commentary has focused on the impact on the likes of Google and Facebook. But, the directive has an impact on media monitoring businesses, with publishers being given greater rights over the use of their content. The directive continues to allow for the use of links and “very short” extracts. The legally minded among you can catch up on the legal advice over on Lexology.
Cision leadership changes & layoffs
Cision has continued the shake-up of its leadership that we covered last month. Chris Lynch, Cision’s CMO role for two years, and Pritham Shetty, the CTO slightly more than a year ago, will be leaving. Chris Copeland, who has been CTO at TrendKite, will replace Shetty. Meanwhile, Falcon.io’s founder and CEO Ulrik Bo Larsen has been named president, Cision Social. As part of the report, the company has confirmed layoffs. Separately, iContact was sold by Cision last month for $US49 million, triggering about 30 job losses at the former division. In Europe, Cision appointed Peter Low as Managing Director, overseeing Cision EMEA operations, and Keir Fawcus as Senior Vice President of Sales, EMEA. Low and Fawkus founded Precise Media Monitoring, steering the business through its successful acquisition by Kantar Media.
Cision reports 2018 earnings
Cision released its 2018 earnings, showing revenue growth to $US730.4m and a significant decrease to its net less, down 80.2% to $US24.4m. The company reports that it has about 9,800 customers on its flagship Cision Communications Cloud platform, and an average spend of $US11,100 per subscription customer. At the time of writing, Cision has not released its full report, but it’s bound to be a good read. Meanwhile, in Australia, iSentia has reported $AU62.6m in revenue for the first half of its financial year, with a $AU22m operating loss. The company discussed lower SaaS sales and increased competition in its key ANZ market.
AMEC Awards Deadline
Just a friendly reminder for all the measurement folk, Friday, March 1 is the the final deadline for the AMEC Awards. If you’re reading this newsletter on the day it’s sent – that’s today (don’t panic!). You can see all the winners at the 2019 AMEC Summit in Prague. The summit will run on 22 & 23 May, and always provides the perfect opportunity to hear the latest in measurement thinking. Earlybird prices are available if you register before 23 April.
Don’t forget to let us know about your measurement moments. Email us – hello@prmeasured.com.