KM Media Group

Last updated

KM Media Group
IndustryMedia
Founded1890
Headquarters Medway, Kent, England
Number of locations
See "Offices", below
Area served
 Kent
Key people
Edward Iliffe
ProductsNewspapers, Radio Stations, Broadcasting, Websites
Parent Iliffe Media Ltd
Divisions KMFM
KMTV
Website www.kmmediagroup.co.uk

KM Media Group is a multimedia company in the county of Kent, England which originated as the publisher of the Kent Messenger. The Group now produces local newspapers, radio stations, TV and websites throughout the county. Iliffe Media acquired KM Media Group in April 2017.

Contents

History

KM Media Group can trace its roots back to 1859, when the Maidstone Telegraph (now the Kent Messenger ) was first published in Kent's county town of Maidstone. The newspaper was taken over by Barham Pratt Boorman in 1890, after its owners, the Masters brothers, were jailed and forced to sell up. Boorman had already started his own newspapers in Ashford.

Barham was succeeded by his son, Henry Pratt Boorman, in the late 1920s. He realised that people would be keen to buy the paper if it included their picture or pictures of their own towns and villages. Henry's son Edwin joined the firm in the late 1950s and was managing director from 1962 until 1986. That was when his father stepped down as chairman and became President of what had developed into the Kent Messenger Group. Edwin took the Chair and remained at the helm until the end of 2005 when he was succeeded by his oldest daughter, Geraldine Allinson.

Cancelled acquisition of further titles

In July 2011, it was announced Northcliffe Media intended to sell nine of its titles to KM Media Group. The newspapers involved included the Dover Express , East Kent Gazette , Folkestone Herald, Herne Bay and Whitstable Times, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Medway News and Thanet Times. KM Media Group referred the acquisition to the Office of Fair Trading. [1]

The Office of Fair Trading then referred the matter to the Competition Commission, because of the possible monopoly it might create. This meant the cost of the deal and process of takeover would have increased. [2]

Due to this interest by the Office of Fair Trading and Competition Commission, the take-over of the papers was scrapped. Since then several of the affected newspapers closed including the Medway News and Isle of Thanet Gazette. [3]

Acquisition

Iliffe Media Ltd acquired the entire shareholding of KM Media Group in April 2017. [4]

Newspapers

KM Media Group operates a number of weekly newspapers for different parts of Kent which have been acquired over the years.

Apart from the Medway Messenger, which is published twice-weekly on Monday and Thursday all titles are published weekly. Also published is Kent Business, a monthly publication which has been going since 1993.

Free newspapers

In 1981 [5] KM Media Group launched its Extra series, beginning with the Thanet Extra. [6] There are currently 4 Extra newspapers around the county that are distributed through letterboxes and available at pick-up points.

Radio

KM Media Group owns and operates seven commercial FM radio stations in Kent. Six of them were previously independent stations, acquired by the Group between 1999 and 2006 and collectively rebranded KMFM. The programming is networked across the stations, however, there is also unique content on each station including; what's on, local advertisements and sponsorship and when relevant other content e.g. traffic reports and school closures. The network also includes a DAB station.

Internet

KM Media Group's main consumer website is KentOnline.co.uk, launched in 1998. [7] The website offers local news, travel, jobs, motors, holidays and other features. As of 2017 the site attracts over 2.7 million monthly unique browsers. [8]

Television

In 2017, KM Media Group launched KMTV in partnership with the University of Kent. [9] KMTV is Kent's only dedicated TV channel, broadcasting a range of current affairs and news programming, including its week-nightly news show, Kent Tonight [10] . It is part of the Local Television Network and regulated by Ofcom. [11]

Offices

KM Media Group has offices in Ashford, Canterbury, Deal, Gravesend, Maidstone, Medway, Ramsgate and Sheerness. [12] It previously had offices in Dover, Faversham, Sittingbourne and Tunbridge Wells (which were closed in 2008); [13] Folkestone (which closed in April 2009); and London (which closed in 2011).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kent</span> County of England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heart Kent</span> Radio station in Whitstable

Heart Kent was an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcast to Kent from studios at John Wilson Business Park in Whitstable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMFM (radio network)</span> English radio station

KMFM is a network of radio stations that was formed from the merger of seven Independent Local Radio stations and one digital station owned by the KM Group, broadcasting to the county of Kent in the United Kingdom. Whilst the station broadcasts as one countywide station, it is officially eight separate licenses.

The Medway News was a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent, England. Established in 1855 as the Military Chronicle and Naval Spectator, it relaunched as the Chatham News and Rochester, Strood, Brompton & Gillingham Advertiser on Saturday 9 July 1859. The first issue cost 1d. The final issue was published on 8 December 2011.

The Kent Messenger is a weekly newspaper serving the mid-Kent area. It is published in three editions - Maidstone, Malling, and the Weald. It is owned by the KM Group and is published on Thursdays.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMFM Canterbury</span> Radio station

KMFM Canterbury is an Independent Local Radio serving the City of Canterbury and the surrounding areas in Kent, South East England. It is the Canterbury region of the KMFM radio network, containing local advertisements and sponsorships for the area amongst a countywide schedule of programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMFM Ashford</span> Radio station

KMFM Ashford is an Independent Local Radio serving the Borough of Ashford and the surrounding areas in Kent, South East England. It is the Ashford region of the KMFM radio network, containing local advertisements and sponsorships for the area amongst a countywide schedule of programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMFM Shepway and White Cliffs Country</span> Radio station

KMFM Shepway and White Cliffs Country is an Independent Local Radio station serving the districts of Dover and Folkestone and Hythe and the surrounding areas in Kent, South East England. It is the South Kent region of the KMFM radio network, containing local advertisements and sponsorships for the area amongst a countywide schedule of programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMFM Thanet</span> Radio station

KMFM Thanet is an Independent Local Radio serving the Isle of Thanet and the surrounding areas in Kent, South East England. It is the Thanet region of the KMFM radio network, containing local advertisements and sponsorships for the area amongst a countywide schedule of programming.

The Kentish Gazette is a weekly newspaper serving the city of Canterbury, Kent. It is owned by KM Group and published on Thursdays. Its Canterbury and Whitstable editions are the only local papers covering the area.

Northcliffe Media was a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK and Central and Eastern Europe. In 2012 the company was sold by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) to a newly formed company, Local World, which also bought Iliffe News and Media from the Yattendon Group. In October 2015, Trinity Mirror, later Reach plc, bought Local World.

The geology of Kent in southeast England largely consists of a succession of northward dipping late Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks overlain by a suite of unconsolidated deposits of more recent origin.

The Kent League was a football league which existed from 1894 until 1959, based in the English county of Kent. Another, unrelated, Kent League was formed in 1966, and is now known as the Southern Counties East Football League.

The 1972–73 Kent Football League season was the seventh in the history of the Kent Football League, a football competition featuring teams based in and around the county of Kent in England.

References

  1. ↑ "Folkestone Herald and Dover Express owners agree to sell newspaper titles to Kent Messenger". Hawkinge Gazette. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  2. ↑ "Medway News and East Kent Gazette face closure". businessforkent.co.uk. 25 November 2011. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  3. ↑ "Newsagents lament loss of Kent weeklies". holdthefrontpage.co.uk. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  4. ↑ "Iliffe Media Ltd acquires KM Media Group". iliffemedia.co.uk. 28 April 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  5. ↑ KM Group Timeline Archived 7 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ KM Group Growth Archived 6 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ↑ http://www.kentonline.co.uk/km_group/km_group/history/over_150_years_of_history.aspx History of the KM
  8. ↑ "Kent Online (KM Group) network" (PDF). abc.org.uk. January–June 2017.
  9. ↑ Sharman, David. "KMTV goes live on Freeview and Virgin in Kent - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage". HoldtheFrontPage. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  10. ↑ "KMTV: Kent's new TV channel launches today". Kent Online. 8 July 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  11. ↑ "Members". Local TV network. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  12. ↑ List of KM Offices Archived 1 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7630372.stm Newspaper publisher cuts 61 jobs
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