News
Bauer Media Group has announced plans to acquire Clear Channel Europe-North, a leading player in the Out of Home (OOH) media sector, for $625 million. This strategic move will expand Bauer Media's presence across 12 European markets, including the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.
The acquisition is expected to enhance Bauer's digital offerings and provide advertisers with broader consumer reach through an extensive network of OOH sites.
The transaction is anticipated to close in 2025, pending regulatory approvals.
Sources
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.
Here's the view from Fooh Studios Commercial Director Danny Donovan
Bauers business is radio and magazines and so this acquisition gives them a whole new field to play on with a great presence in OOH (static and digital) across key European markets including some iconic locations.
Bauer are a large digital publisher. However, the magazine publishing market (physical and digital) has become tough to monetise with the almost terminal fall in print circulations coupled with the over supply of digital inventory in the market, the dominance of Google and the prevalence of programmatic trading mechanisms.
They also had little scope for further rapid expansion in the audio business with limited acquisition opportunities and slow organic audience growth performance. Audio also takes a very small share of advertising budgets, and recent audience migration to streaming services (Spotify etc) and podcasts have put that under further pressure. So OOH gives them a new avenue to growth.
This reflects a similar move global made several years ago.
Sources inside both organisations say there is a lot to learn from both the success and challenges global have faced. Structural blockages in the media buy side have made it difficult for global to realise a cross media sell. Arguably Bauer already have better experience of that across Audio and magazines and will look to apply that to OOH.
This is a good deal for both parties as it brings to an end a protracted process for Clear Channel looking to offload their European business which has been running for several years. It represents good value for Bauer vs a rumoured original asking price of £1bn+. It also protects both companies’ sales teams as they will come together with complimentary skills.
OOH has seen a recent resurgence in advertising spend. With record figures reported for H1 2024, although H2 is expected to be slightly softer.
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