RBI to host hacks/hackers day in November

Reed Business Information (RBI) is hosting an event for journalists and programmers interested in working together on data visualisation. The one-day “hack day”, which will take place on 29 November, will be run with the help of data scraping project ScraperWiki.

Speaking on the ScraperWiki blog, Karl Schneider, editorial development director at RBI, explains the thinking behind the event:

Data journalism is an important area of development for our editorial teams in RBI

It’s a hot topic for all journalists, but it’s particularly relevant in the B2B sector. B2B journalism is focused on delivering information that it’s audience can act on, supporting important business decisions.

Often a well-thought-out visualisation of data can be the most effective way of delivering critical information and helping users to understand key trends.

We’re already having some successes with this kind of journalism, and we think we can do a lot more. So building up the skills of our editorial teams in this area is very important.

You can register for the event at this link.

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FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US

Reed Business Information is to close 23 B2B magazine titles in the US. FOLIO reports:

About nine months after putting the brands published under the U.S. arm of Reed Business Information on the block again, Reed Elsevier announced today that it is closing down the magazines it has not been able to sell or does not intend to keep. In total, the number of magazines to be closed down is 23.

According to FOLIO, parent company Reed Elsevier declined to comment on the number of job losses as a result.

Full post at this link…

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RBI sells off furniture titles in US

Reed Business Information (RBI) has sold its Furniture Today group of titles to Sandow Media, part of private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

No financial terms have been disclosed for the deal, which includes Furniture Today, Casual Living and Interior Design magazine, according to a media release from Sandow.

The sale is the latest in a series of deals as part of the piecemeal divestment of a number of RBI’s B2B and trade titles, after the company’s attempt to sell the whole of its magazine publishing arm failed in December 2008.

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Media Business: New bidder in talks to buy RBI’s US magazines

Canon Communications is reportedly in talks with Reed Business Information to buy a number of trade publications from the publisher, which last year announced the divestment of its controlled circulation business titles in the US.

The titles being discussed, according to Media Business, could include Control Engineering, EDN, Design News, Packaging Digest and Test & Measurement World.

Full story at this link…

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FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI

Reed Elsevier has sold another piece of trade magazine arm Reed Business Information (RBI). The group’s Nordic arm has acquired by private equity firm GMT for around €10 million, the FT reports.

Reed failed to sell RBI as a whole unit last year.

It has since sold its travel publishing division TWgroup and announced it will offload some of its US controlled circulation titles.

Full post at this link…

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RBI staff vote against further industrial action

National Union of Journalist (NUJ) members at Reed Business Information (RBI) have voted against further industrial action following a strike ballot at the publisher.

In the Wednesday ballot, 111 voted against further action being taken in response to proposed merger of production desks at Flight International, ICIS and Contract Journal and issues of compulsory redundancies.

According to an internal memo seen by Journalism.co.uk, the NUJ chapel will meet with the company again on March 4 to discuss new offers to staff, with separate meetings to be held for members at New Scientist and Estates Gazette.

In the ballot, 64 NUJ members voted in favour of taking industrial action.

Last month the group announced 35 staff redundancies in the UK, citing ‘long-term structural needs’ and the new challenges of the economic downturn.

Parent company Reed Elsevier recently extended loan arrangements for its $2 billion debt.

In December Reed terminated the sale of magazine arm RBI, as a result of ‘the recent deterioration in macro-economic outlook and poor credit market conditions’.

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Timeline of RBI sale

Since announcing the ‘divestment’ of magazine publishing arm Reed Business Information (RBI), the sale by parent company Reed Elsevier has been the centre of much speculation.

Below is a timeline (created using Dipity) of the events so far – if there are any missing, let me know:

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Dow Jones: RBI buyer to be announced by October, says Reed Elsevier

A buyer for Reed Elsevier’s B2B publishing arm RBI is expected to be announced in October, a memo from Marianne van Leeuwen, the chief executive of Reed’s Dutch operations, has said.

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