Specialist media and marketing news website Mumbrella is being acquired by The Intermedia Group in a move that brings back into the fold Mumbrella co-founder Tim Burrowes as shareholder of new owner Mumbrella Media.
Burrowes and his latest venture Unmade join majority shareholder The Intermedia Group as owners of Mumbrella Media following the acquisition from Diversified Communications which has owned Mumbrella since 2017.
Under the deal, Burrowes and his Unmade team will join the existing Mumbrella crew at Intermedia’s inner-Sydney office at Glebe with Burrowes becoming Mumbrella Media’s publisher and managing director.
Mumbrella was founded in 2008 by Burrowes, Martin Lane and Ian Wakeling, the latter a silent partner in the business. Burrowes and Lane remained with Mumbrella after the sale to Diversified Communications until 2020 when they relinquished management control.
“With some personal reasons for moving back to the UK for what ended up being half a year, I left Mumbrella in 2021 and worked on Unmade from over there,” says Burrowes in a blog on the Unmade website.
“Unmade picked up momentum once I got back to Australia in 2022.”
Burrowes was a newspaper journalist for 30 years, originally in the UK, before landing in Australia as editor of B&T Weekly in 2006 prior to establishing Mumbrella.
Burrowes founded Unmade, a newsletter and podcast that offers media and marketing news and analysts, in 2021 and since then has grown revenue by close to 100 per cent year-on-year.
Unmade posted revenue of $148,000 in FY22, rising to $287,000 in FY23 and $554,000 in FY24.
“In just the first half of this financial year we wrote almost the same revenue - $493,000 - as we did in the whole of the previous year,” says Burrowes.
“It’s Unmade’s success (there, I said it) which has delivered us the means of playing ourselves into this deal, which will be good for both Unmade and Mumbrella.”
Burrowes sees Unmade and Mumbrella as a natural fit under the new ownership structure.
“When it comes to editorial ethos, Mumbrella and Unmade are twins, albeit non-identical,” he says.
“Unmade has the same organising thought with which we started Mumbrella back in the day - our job is to help our audience in their working lives and careers by doing our best to tell it like it is.
“In the case of Mumbrella, it was about being web-first and comprehensive - everything under the media and marketing umbrella, if you will. The events side of the business followed later.”
The Intermedia Group, which was founded by Simon Grover in 1989, is described as Australia’s leading B2B digital, event management and print business. Intermedia is majority shareholder of Mumbrella Media.
“One benefit of having done Unmade for the last three-and-a-half years is that I am better equipped to be publisher of Mumbrella Media than I would have been before,” says Burrowes.
“Last time round, I was the content guy and contributed to strategy as a shareholder and director.
"I’m lucky enough to inherit the Mumbrella hot seat at a time when it is already on an upwards trajectory.
"Outgoing publisher Adam Lang has been a positive force who stabilised the title when he joined just over a year ago. That was despite only having half his time available to work on Mumbrella, with the excellent Fear & Greed podcast as his main gig."
The acquisition came about late last year after Diversified Communications approached The Intermedia Group to gauge its interest, according to Diversified CEO David Longman.
"Diversified recognised this as the ideal time to transition ownership," says Longman.
"This move ensures Mumbrella will continue to thrive and grow under new leadership, further cementing its place as a cornerstone of Australia’s marketing and media landscape.
“The Intermedia Group’s proven track record in publishing and events makes them the perfect custodian for the Mumbrella brand. We are confident that this transition will bring exciting opportunities for Mumbrella’s community, clients and staff, ensuring the brand continues to innovate and grow.”
However, Burrowes notes that publishing remains a challenging market “particularly in this environment”.
“How we refocus Mumbrella (and Unmade alongside it) will follow,” he says.
“In the seven years since I was last an owner, the world, and Mumbrella itself, has changed. And the detail of that deserves to be in a post on Mumbrella after we get the keys to the house next week.”
Burrows will take back the reins at Mumbrella on 28 January 2025 when the deal settles.
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