Future plc has announced that it has acquired the Cycling News website from Knapp Communications for AUS $5.25 million. Cycling News was started by Australian economics professor Bill Mitchell in 1995. He sold it in 1999.
According to the announcement, traffic to the site is booming:
Traffic to the site continues to grow significantly – for the year to June 2006, Cyclingnews.com attracted an average of 30 million page impressions per month, with an average of 500,000 unique users per month. Latest data for year to June 2007 is expected to show a further substantial increase on these figures.
I don’t know about other newsagencies but my shop has four hardcode cycling titles and a raft of mountain bike titles. I see the acquisition as a trend in the specialty magazine space. It will drive advertisers from print to online and ultimately see fewer of these titles on the shelves.