Dennis Publishing is buying another independent niche online consumer publisher – the male-centric site for “funny videos” and “virals”, Kontraband.com from owner Diffusion Media Group.
The 10-year-old site aims at 18-to-34 men with games, vids, blog posts and pics, with an editorial team of just five ,claiming 2.2 million monthly uniques. There’s no acquisition price, but Dennis in its release says the Kontraband.com team will work alongside that of its page-turning digital edition-only men’s mag Monkey. This also comes after Dennis shut the print edition of men’s mag Maxim in April, taking it online-only.
Dennis last year bought web-only news digest TheFirstPost.co.uk to ally it with its printed news mag The Week; it said it would use it to take The Week online and pay-for, though there’s not yet a sign of that. It also bought independent PC modding site Bit-Tech.net to add to its computer portfolio including ITPro.co.uk, KnowYourMobile and the digital-edition iGizmo.
Felix Dennis wants to make 40 percent of Dennis ad revenue from online this year