It hasn’t been a huge secret that MotorTrend, the popular magazine and website, was in the process of being offloaded. Who would buy such a publication? It turns out the answer is Hearst Magazines, the same company that owns Car And Driver, Road & Track, Autoweek, and BringATrailer. As MotorTrend also owns the zombie Automobile magazine and Hot Rod, this means that one company will own all of America’s traditional buff books.
The announcement was made today that MotorTrend Group, which more recently was part of Warner Bros. Discovery, will be sold off to Hearst Magazines and fall under the company’s Hearst Autos umbrella.
This is a big deal as, many years ago, MotorTrend was in competition with the likes of Road & Track, Car And Driver, and Automobile as well as Autoweek, all of whom had different owners at one time. Now they all have a single owner.
Here’s the announcement from Hearst:
MotorTrend Group will expand Hearst’s collection of brands for car enthusiasts and buyers providing even more up-to-the-minute content, commerce and community. MotorTrend Group’s vast portfolio embodies car culture from electric vehicles to timeless classic customs, reaching over 30 million users every month. Its robust events business draws approximately 500,000 passionate enthusiasts every year to iconic experiences such as HOT ROD Drag Week, Roadkill Nights and the Japanese Automotive Invitational at Pebble Beach.
“The acquisition of MotorTrend represents a strategic investment in our business — one that enables us to expand our digital offerings, reach an even broader and more diverse community of automobile enthusiasts and bring the most innovative opportunities to the market,” Chirichella said. “We look forward to welcoming MotorTrend Group to our Hearst family as we continue to drive long-term growth across the business.”
Wellen said of the acquisition: “Over the past 75 years, we have grown MotorTrend into one of the most influential automotive multi-media companies in the world, reaching hundreds of millions of car enthusiasts across all platforms. Joining Hearst, a business I’ve long admired, will ensure that our beloved collection of brands continue to serve and entertain automotive fans for years to come.”
This might also explain why WBD killed off Roadkill as a show, since it would no longer own the brand it’s connected to after this year.
The company says that the brands will still operate out of the company’s El Segundo, California and Detroit offices. There was, thankfully, no mention of any layoffs, though redundancies are usually found over time when big operations like these merge.
As a publisher, I can see the enormous sense this makes for Hearst, which has faced the same difficult advertising market that everyone else has over the last few years. Now when a car company sends out a request for advertising proposals there’s one less piece of competition for the team at Hearst (full disclosure: I did some work with the team at Hearst in my previous job) when it comes to the bidding.
In the short term, I don’t think this will impact the journalism done by any of these brands, though as a news consumer, I think it’s better when media isn’t so consolidated, which is why we will try to continue to exist as an independent organization.
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Photo: Citizen Kane
There is no doubt that paper based media is on a downward trend but for me it is a double hit as new vehicles are just not as interesting as they used to be either.
I’m one the small minority, especially millennial, that still loves print media, particularly car mags. MT used to be a great publication, especially under Angus Mckenzie. Once Ed Loh took over in the 00’s it really went downhill. Then they pushed all their online service crap. It’s always been an advertisement but it reads much more schill than ever.
Stopped subscribing 10 years ago but tried once like 3 years back cuz it was $5. Just horrible, horrible writing and cancelled it early to get my $2 back. I still think C/D and R&T are doing a great job. C/D has a fun community online, still uses snarky, clever writing and decent comparisons. R&T now does great history and lifestyle stuff involving cars. Will keep supporting those 2 as along as possible.