Ziff Davis Media Inc. - Introduction

Introduction

28 East 28th Street
New York, New York 10016-7930
U.S.A.
Telephone: (212) 503-3500
Fax: (212) 503-5696
Web site: http://www.ziffdavis.com

Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Ziff Davis Holdings Inc.
Founded: 1927 as Popular Aviation Company
Employees: 525
Sales: $204.5 million (2004)
NAIC: 511120 Periodical Publishers; 516110 Internet Publishing and Broadcasting

Ziff Davis Media Inc. is one of the largest publishers of technology and video game magazines in the United States. Among the company's key publications are the consumeroriented PC Magazine, Sync, and ExtremeTech; the business-focused eWEEK, CIO Insight, and Baseline; and in the gaming world, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. These titles garner a collective 20 percent of the advertising pages in the U.S. technology magazine industry. Their combined circulation is 2.5 million, led by the flagship PC Magazine, which boasts a paid circulation of 700,000, and the titles are estimated to reach more than 22 million people per month. The company also licenses its content and brands to licensees who produce titles in some 40 international markets, in 20 languages, and Ziff Davis Media also manages a number of Internet web sites, both magazine companion sites and independent sites for technology and video game enthusiasts. About 64 percent of Ziff Davis's revenue is derived from advertising, while subscription and newsstand sales accounts for about 17 percent. The remaining 19 percent comes from other revenue sources, including mailing list rentals, custom conferences and events, and eNewsletters.

The history of Ziff Davis Media is unusually complex, highlighted by three major events—a huge asset sale (1985) and two breakups of the company into several separate pieces (1994 and 2000). The company also evolved significantly over the years. It started out publishing specialty consumer magazines and then branched out into business niche publications, before refocusing on the computer magazine niche following the 1985 divestments. It then branched out again, into such related areas as trade shows and exhibitions, database and CD-ROM publishing, and online publishing. Following the 1994 breakup, it focused on its technology publications and the ZDNet online content site. The company soon regained a presence in the trade show field and launched a cable television channel, ZDTV (later TechTV). But then in 2000, the company was broken apart yet again, with the technology publications gaining independence within Ziff Davis Media Inc., and the other Ziff units going their separate ways. Since 2000 Ziff Davis Media has been wholly owned by Ziff Davis Holdings Inc., a publicly traded holding company majority owned and controlled by Willis Stein & Partners, L.P., a private equity investment firm.