Sophia Michaels
Rolling Stone‘s parent company Penske Media Corporation announced today a strategic investment in Music Business Worldwide — a deal that brings the two publications closer than ever before, adds another heavyweight to PMC’s family of media brands, and further enriches Rolling Stone‘s coverage and analysis of the global music industry.
The substantial equity investment strengthens the global content partnership that Rolling Stone and Music Business Worldwide first struck in 2018. Under the new partnership, MBW — which was founded in 2015 to service the music industry with breaking news and analysis and saw 7.3 million pageviews in 2019 — will contribute its expert business coverage to Rolling Stone. The music-industry news outlet will also play a role in RS Pro, Rolling Stone‘s forthcoming suite of powerful tools for music-business professionals, and work alongside Alpha Data, the analytics company that powers the Rolling Stone Charts.
Since PMC’s acquisition of Rolling Stone in 2017, the music brand has relaunched its print magazine, modernized its website, launched music charts, and added a music-business team to its newsroom spanning multiple cities. In January, Rolling Stone also hired two new music-business reporters in Los Angeles, Samantha Hissong and Ethan Millman, to join the global team.
The new investment paves the way for new revenue models and innovation on top of those moves. Tim Ingham, the London-based founder and publisher of MBW, says: “Five years into MBW’s story, we are confident that in PMC we have found the perfect partner with which to join forces. PMC’s brands, content and people are defined by quality, with the power to lead industry conversations across entertainment. MBW is excited to work closely with Alpha Data to generate must-read industry insights, and we look forward to building on our alliance with Rolling Stone, exploring further strategic opportunities that bring tangible value to the music business.”
“We continue to be impressed with Tim and MBW’s strong relationships and expertise in covering the business of music,” says PMC Chairman and CEO Jay Penske. “In particular, Tim and his talented team have tapped into a top tier global audience with quality well above and beyond offerings by competitors. We see significant potential in what we will build together.”
Rolling Stone recently launched the RS Pro newsletter, the first of a number of new products under the RS Pro brand. Sign up for the newsletter here, read more about the new project here, and stay tuned for more details on forthcoming RS Pro offerings.
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