Thursday, 28 March 2024
News

Cycling Weekly becomes Time’s priority as road portfolio slims

Publisher of Cycling Weekly Time Inc is proposing to close Cycling Active and Cycle Sport in order to focus its attention on the former.

The publishing house will now turn its attention to the weekly title, founded back in 1891, which boasts around 1.5 million copy sales a year and remains the only title published weekly. Events too will play a key part in the publisher’s cycling strategy.

Announcing the consolidation strategy, Steve Prentice, the managing director for the cycling portfolio said: “We are 100% committed to cycling and continue to see a huge opportunity for growth in this fast-paced 24/7 sector. However, we have decided to focus our resources on where we are seeing most demand from consumers and the most exciting growth opportunities. We will be sad to say goodbye to Cycling Active and Cycle Sport, but this decision will allow us to play to our strengths and focus on what our consumers really want.

“With its 125 year-old print heritage and fast growing website, Cycling Weekly is going from strength-to-strength under the leadership of editorial content director Simon Collis, editor Simon Richardson and digital editor Richard Windsor. The site traffic grew 127% last year and there’s no sign of that slowing down. We are also seeing growth in video – in the last 12 months we have had 3.7 million video views – and recently made our first 360 degree video for a commercial partner. This consolidation will herald an exciting new phase for our portfolio.

“Live events and experiences are now a key part of the portfolio too, with UKCE, our events business, producing 80 Sportive events this year. Within this business, Cycling Weekly Sportives are among the fastest growing and we intend to build on their popularity.”

The cycling portfolio will now relocate from Croydon to a new office in Farnborough, which is kitted out with video, photographic and some test facilities.