Scientific American forms consumer media division of Nature Publishing Group
This week the Scientific American team will join their Nature Publishing Group (NPG) colleagues in the existing NPG offices in Varick Street, New York City. The office move marks a major step in the integration of two of Macmillan Publishers' most dynamic publishing units. Scientific American will form the heart of a new consumer media division at NPG.
NPG and Scientific American are being brought together into a single business, reporting to NPG Managing Director Steven Inchcoombe. The two iconic brands of Nature and Scientific American will position NPG to be the most authoritative and comprehensive science media group, spanning from consumer to scholar, from high school student to researcher.
"This is a great opportunity for both businesses and I am confident that together the two organizations will be better, stronger and even more successful," said Steven Inchcoombe. "The synergies between NPG and Scientific American are extensive, particularly in the digital space."
The collaboration creates a powerhouse science media group. Two of the most popular scientific websites, nature.com has approximately 5 million monthly unique users, scientificamerican.com approximately 2 million.
Scientific American will continue to be published independently, retain its editorial and brand identity and continue to serve its target audience and advertisers. "Drawing on NPG's resources will enable Scientific American to maximize the potential of its strong brand in a consumer media landscape that is changing dramatically," continued Inchcoombe. "For NPG, the move brings opportunities to strengthen and diversify its offering, particularly in the US where Scientific American enjoys a strong brand position." Common suppliers and systems will provide efficiencies for both businesses.
In an early example of the opportunities for business synergies, Naturejobs advertisers will now be able to reach Scientific American's U.S. audience of over 3.5 million readers and users in print and online. The Naturejobs teams now offer print advertising in Scientific American as well as in Nature and other NPG titles, and will be offering advertisers access to Scientific American's web users later in 2009. This collaboration will continue to expand, including into Scientific American's local language editions and into new fields such as technology and science-related business jobs.
"We are confident that bringing together these two leading science and innovation media brands will enable us to create uniquely powerful and effective marketing opportunities for our various advertising clients," said Bruce Brandfon, Vice President and Publisher, Scientific American. "The combined influence of Scientific American and Nature will provide our marketing partners with an unsurpassed suite of superior media solutions."
NPG will bring its experience and capability in providing online services for institutions to Scientific American. The Scientific American Archive, currently hosted by EBSCO, will move onto nature.com in Q4 of 2009, and be available through NPG's site license sales teams. The Archive will be hosted alongside Nature and other NPG journals, offering customers a whole new range of functions and much broader integration with the wider scientific literature. EBSCO will continue to host Scientific American through May 2010, and the archive will remain available on EBSCOhost.
Scientific American President Steven Yee and Editor-in-Chief John Rennie have left the organization to pursue new projects. Mariette DiChristina, Scientific American's Executive Editor, has been promoted to Acting Editor-in-Chief.
"Scientific American, with its reputation for providing high-quality, authoritative editorial to science-interested consumers, has found a good home among the Nature family of well-regarded journals," said Mariette DiChristina.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology since 1845. NPG's flagship journal Nature, first published in 1869, is the world's most cited weekly scientific journal.
Scientific American and NPG are both part of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, a Holtzbrinck group company.
