Future in doubt
Future Publishing announces poor results
And the bad news just keeps on coming. As the gaming industry and related sectors continue to slump, Future Publishing (the Bath based company behind PC Gamer, Official Playstation Magazine, Future Music and other titles) has announced disastrous results for the last financial year. Although turnover was up by almost 30%, the company's losses widened dramatically from £3.5m to a staggering £59.3m during 2000.
Most of this was thanks to Future's heavy investment in the internet, which couldn't have come at a worse time given the recent collapse of the online advertising market and the continued reluctance of people to actually pay for anything online. And with no obvious plan in place yet to make their websites pay for themselves, things aren't looking good for this year either. Internet losses over the last year amounted to a wince inducing £35.7m, and in an attempt to halt the slide Future have announced that they will be drastically cutting their investment in e-publishing from over £10m last year to just £4m.
Earlier this year Future laid off around 350 staff worldwide and shut down 20 of their less successful magazines, including DC UK and Video Gamer. Further redundancies (especially in their internet operation) remain a strong possibility unless things pick up soon...