A Kent-based communications business has grown to over £14m in turnover by acquiring more than 70 underperforming specialist magazines.
Many of its print titles, such as Process and Control Engineering and School Building, are incredibly niche.
Datateam, founded in 1983, has spent twenty years buying up small to medium-sized specialist titles, expanding them through events and newsletters while reducing their print costs where possible.
Most of the mainly monthy titles Datateam has acquired have been at risk of slipping out of profitability.
“We’d like to consider ourselves to be one of the largest independently-owned publishing media businesses in the UK,” Datateam media director Paul Ryder said, having managed to turn “a lot of these acquisitions” into “profitable magazines”.
This revenue is made through print and online advertising across newsletters and websites (sponsored takeovers, banners and button ads), as well as through paid subscriptions, which, for a free magazine, “guarantees that you can receive a printed copy”.
“Our goal would be that anyone who wanted a printed copy, we’ll send it to them, although we don’t guarantee to send it to them every month,” said Ryder.
This is because distribution of free titles can be temperamental depending on availability, audit lists and rotation.
Targets magazines in ‘traditional’ markets
The company has been owned by Parvez Kayani since 1990, publishing its own product-led titles serving retail markets such as sports and homeware for 15 years. These titles were often without an editor but contained paid-for press releases and contact details for buyers – such as Bathroom & Kitchen Update.
Ryder said: “So, that’s how we launched as a publishing business in lots of different markets… and then that’s when Parvez embarked on the acquisition trail.”
Today, Datateam has built a portfolio of more than 70 magazines and 40 live events, with its biggest titles by revenue – excluding its pharmaceutical titles – including Casino International, Bathroom & Kitchen Update and Builders Merchants Journal.
“Having such a wide portfolio of titles actually gives us quite a lot of security,” Ryder said. “It does present us with a little bit of a rollercoaster ride financially, because we’re in so many different sectors,” he added, saying this levels out over the years.
“Because our margins are relatively low… we need a lot of brands to support that contribution to the business. But it works.”
In 2024, advertising made up £8.4m (around 60%) of Datateam’s £14m turnover, while events accounted for £4.4m (32%) and magazine subscriptions made up £1.2m (8%), according to Companies House.
The company has not published its home-grown titles for some years. It employs 158 full-time staff across marketing, web, sales, admin and editorial, with operations in London, Bromsgrove and Macclesfield. Some 83 are employees of Datateam (not including its five subsidiaries such as Koru Media and Content Media Services), which reached £9.6m in turnover for the full year to December 2024.
Live events driving growth
For the last 20 years, a focus has been to transform magazines into “more than just a magazine in any one industry”, which has led Datateam to add events on to most acquired titles, said Ryder.
These are mostly conferences with exhibitors or awards ceremonies that take place in hotels with around 150 guests. Its pharmaceutical events are an exception and are attended by between 700 and 1,000 guests.
The events make money through ticket sales and sponsorship.
“That’s really where we’ve seen a lot of our growth as a company, through live events,” said Ryder. He added it has “cemented” the brands in the media space and brought back advertising revenues.
“So, where we found some of our magazine brands actually started to suffer with loss of advertising revenues, which a lot of publishers have seen, we manage actually to get suppliers back interested in our magazines by foot, by having a relationship with them in terms of live effect… that re-establishes the relationship that we may perhaps have lost from our magazine.”
He added that live events help identify the magazine’s audience by allowing publishers to directly speak to the “right” customers and collecting their data through sign-up forms to further stimulate growth.
Detaching titles from ABC auditing and print circulation
This data is “far more valuable” to advertisers than ABC figures, Ryder said, adding that Datateam aims to move acquired titles away from ABC certification.
Without ABC audits, publications have “more flexibility” in terms of the number of magazines that are sent out, avoiding the need to maintain circulation according to ABC’s definition.
“ABC was always, for me, about getting the strongest headline figure you could get against your competitor… For us, that’s not so important anymore,” said Ryder.
[Read more: Ten out of 131 ABC-audited magazines grew sales in 2025]
He said: “A lot of these companies that we buy, their print circulations are way, way too high because they haven’t adapted. They haven’t moved with the times in terms of investing in digital data.”
This shift from print doesn’t involve eliminating print altogether but allowing readers to opt-in to receive print and digital copies.
Read more on B2B titles shifting away from print:
- Nursing Times ends 120-year print run to focus on digital growth
- Travel magazine TTG closes print title to focus on digital and events growth
- Inside Housing closes print but expands digital output
With a more digital-focused strategy, Datateam drives website content through breaking news written by journalists and more PR-based product news.
Video content is also generated for websites through the live events, such as interviews with clients on stands – something Ryder “would like to see a lot more of”, adding the same is true of podcasts.
When Datateam first buys a new title, Ryder said its initial prioirty is to do “nothing”.
“You work with the people on those titles that have come on board, you understand some of that, because you’ve got to be mindful – there are people involved in this,” said Ryder.
Martin Tingle, managing director at Datateam’s acquired brand Content Media Solutions, added that though many companies acquired are sceptical there is a “catch” in terms of major business changes or redundancies, this doesn’t happen – instead software changes are adopted, like in email and payroll.
“We’re getting on towards two years in, and we gave up looking for the catch probably about 12 months ago,” he said, adding staff generally have “pent up ideas” when Datateam acquires the company, and find themselves listened to.
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