Acquisition of Men & Motors
12 December 2012
One Media iP Group plc
("One Media" or the "Company")
Acquisition of Men & Motors
One Media, the profitable Netlabel, consolidator and acquirer of music and
video rights, announces the acquisition of Men & Motors in its entirety and the
entire library of rights from Granada Television Productions Limited and ITV
Digital Channels Limited.
The acquisition, which is being made for an undisclosed sum, includes the sale
and assignment of all rights to the content and trademarks of Men & Motors to
One Media of approximately 1,600 hours of programming and over 3,000 different
episodes from a variety of popular shows from the Men & Motors catalogue of
rights. The portfolio obtained by One Media includes the following:
* Motor Mania presented by Richard Hammond
* Car Crazy Rio featuring Jeremy Clarkson
* Jordan's Fantasies
* Caprice: Supermodel Special
* 100 Most Popular Cars Ever, presented by John Inverdale
* The Vinnie Jones Show
* Stars in their Cars featuring Daley Thompson, Eamon Holmes and John McCririck
In addition to the above, the other shows in the library feature hundreds of
hours of motoring special interest programs, including: Original Mini Racing,
the History of the VW Beetle, Customizing Road Cars, Monster Truck Racing,
Caterham Car Racing, Vintage Motor shows, Trucks & Truckers, Bikers and their
Dream Machines, Mods on Scooters and many more.
The 3,000 episodes being acquired originally cost several million pounds to
produce and were aired on the Men & Motors channels on Sky TV between 1996 and
2009. One Media will now look to derive value from the content by re-packaging
it for sale across a variety of digital platforms including iTunes, Amazon,
and YouTube.
Men & Motors was launched on 1 October 1996. It became the last remaining
station operated by the former Granada Sky Broadcasting ("GSB") joint venture,
set up by Granada Television (now part of ITV plc) and British Sky Broadcasting
in 1996. The channel enjoyed a surge in popularity between 2002 and 2005 before
being moved to Freeview and finally transmitting its last show on ITV4 in April
2010.
Michael Infante, CEO and Chairman of One Media said: "This acquisition adds
greatly to the depth and breadth of video content on offer to our customers and
marks a real milestone in the history of One Media. The shows from Men & Motors
now have the opportunity for a new lease of life thanks to the growing
consumption of digital media and the emergence of Smart TVs (Internet connected
TV)."
"In addition, we see great opportunities in monetising the M&M brand through
other avenues of licensing. The M&M brand lends itself to use for franchising
deals in men's products from cosmetics to picture library usage. In addition we
are in discussions regarding the content being re-broadcast on traditional
nostalgia TV channels."
For further information please visit www.onemediaip.com or contact:
One Media iP Group plc Hybridan LLP Tavistock Communications
Michael Infante Claire Noyce/Deepak John West/ Simon Compton
Reddy
Chairman & CEO ISDX Corporate Adviser Financial PR
Tel: +44 (0)17 5378 5500 Tel: +44 (0)20 7947 4350 Tel: + 44 (0)20 7920 3150
Notes to Editors:
One Media is a digital music and video rights owner. The consumer operation
looks to exploit its catalogue of over 170,000 music tracks and over 5,000
hours of video by repackaging the content for sale through over 200 digital
music and video stores worldwide including iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer,
eMusic and YouTube. The Company has a team of creative technicians who
re-compile and prepare digital music releases using bespoke in-house software.
Additionally, One Media licenses its music content for TV shows, movies,
adverts, games and websites. Clients include Disney, Ubisoft and ITV. One Media
operates an online sync database system that enables music supervisors to
explore the library and select tracks for music briefs.
One Media focuses on music by well known artists from every genre, including;
pop, rock, reggae, R&B, children's music, karaoke, jazz, soul, blues, rap,
hip-hop, gospel, world-music, plus stand-up comedy, spoken-word and over 1000
hours of classical music. One Media is now eligible for Enterprise Investment
Schemes ("EIS") and Venture Capital Trusts ("VCT").