Future plc
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| Public | |
| Traded as | : |
| Industry | Magazine and internet publishing |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Founder | Chris Anderson |
| Headquarters | Bath, Somerset, England |
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Key people
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Peter Allen (Non-executive chairman) Zillah Byng-Thorne (Chief Executive Officer) |
| Subsidiaries | Future US |
| Website | futureplc |
Future plc is a British media company founded in 1985. It publishes more than 50 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, films, music, photography, and knowledge. It is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index. The company also owns the US company Future US.
The company was founded as Future Publishing in Somerton, Somerset in 1985 by Chris Anderson with the sole magazine Amstrad Action. An early innovation was the inclusion of free software on magazine covers, the first company to do so.
Anderson sold Future to Pearson PLC for £52.7m in 1994, but bought it back in 1998, with Future chief executive Greg Ingham and Apax Venture Partners, for £142m. In 2001, Anderson left Future.
In 2007 the State of Texas filed a lawsuit against Future plc for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The lawsuit alleges that the Future plc owned website GamesRadar "failed to include necessary disclosures and obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children." The owner of the other websites settled in March 2008, though the final disposition against Future PLC is not public record.
In November 2009, Future reported a fall in profits from £9.5 million to £3.7 million (a loss of 61 percent) in the fiscal year that ended 30 September 2009. Future attributed this to problems with their US market, hit by a fall in the general advertising market.
In March 2010, Future announced that it was exploring the possibility of reviving its GamesMaster brand on television. The video games show had run from 1992 until 1998; the spin-off magazine continues to be published.
The company had a period of shuttering print media properties in favour of digital media, closing many titles and selling off others. In January 2012, Future sold its U.S. music-media brands, including Guitar World and Revolver, to New Bay Media LLC for $3 million. In April 2013, it completed the sale of major components of its UK media-music brands for ₤10.2 million to Team Rock Ltd. In September 2013 – but bought back these back in 2017 after Team Rock went into administration for £800,000,
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