IBT Media refocuses efforts on advertising and events
IBT Media is putting increased focus on advertising and events, announcing it will add two separate arms to its UK business to house these divisions just months after coming under fire for aggressive cuts to its editorial staff in the US.
Newsweek
The publisher, which owns titles the International Business Times UK and Newsweek Europe, claims it has seen record traffic to its news sites in recent months.
According to its internal Google Analytics stats, IBTimes UK reached a record 22.9m unique users for July, up from 13.3m monthly unique users in the same period in 2015, representing a 71 per cent year-on-year growth for the title. Newsweek Europe hit 2.5m monthly unique users compared to 800,000 in the previous year, representing a 213 per cent year-on-year increase.
The advertising content hub IBTailored will be led by recently appointed creative director, Richard Remington, formerly at the the Wall Street Journal, and Pamela Ferrari-Blanchard, who will join the business as sales director in October from Hearst Magazines UK. It will be focused on delivering bespoke advertising solutions cross-channel.
The new conferences and events division will be led by former managing director at Reed Exhibitions, Justin Tadman, who joins IBT Media as general manager for events. The first events under the new division are scheduled to take place in autumn 2016.
Isabel Lloyd, former deputy editor at the Economist’s Intelligent Life, will join in the newly created role of culture editor for Newsweek Europe.
This is despite IBT Media cutting at least 30 of its US reporters and editors in June, just months after an earlier round of layoffs cut at least 15 staffers. This led to accusations from former employees that IBT failed to pay severance or give notice.
Shortly after the staff exodus, IBT Media reshuffled its leadership team, with co-founder and chief executive Etienne Uzacwill stepping down to become chairman, while Dev Pragad, IBT Media’s former managing director for Europe, took up the role of global chief executive.