UK magazine publisher Future is hiring ad sales house AdGent 007’s chief operating officer John Marcom Jr. as president of its U.S. business, in a bid to point its fortunes back in the right direction.
The U.S. unit, which makes up 30 percent of group revenue, is expected to swing to a full-year loss for the year to September 30, the group said in a pre-close trading update on Tuesday – “primarily due to further revenue shortfalls caused by the continuing impact of the unprecedented U.S. newsstand disruption”.
It said: “The newsstand disruption has made forecasting much more difficult than in previous years as many of our U.S. publications stay on sale for several months and we are only now seeing the impact of this. Also in the U.S., sector-wide softness in non-endemic advertising has yet to improve.”
Future remains bullish about its UK special-interest magazine business but, thanks to the U.S. downturn, the group as a whole expects another year of flat EBITA and results “towards the lower end of market expectations”.
Online, Future is grouping its magazine brands together in themed, “Radar” portals – BikeRadar, GamesRadar, MusicRadar and TechRadar and, the latest, launching in Drupal this week, PhotoRadar. It’s also added a subscription-only World Of Warcraft title to its list of video game licences.
Former journalist Marcom Jr. was previously president of Time Inc. International, SVP at Atom Films and president of the Americas for the FT, before joining Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) in 2003 and leaving as international SVP three years later. He became AdGent 007’s COO in September.