Mark Hanrahan appointment

31/03/08 – Future, the UK’s leading video games media company, has recruited Mark Hanrahan, a former Haymarket Commercial Director, to head up its newly restructured games advertising team.

Operating from Future’s London office, the eight-strong team is headed up by new recruit, Mark Hanrahan. Mark joins the company from Haymarket, where he was most recently Commercial Director for Haymarket Football – overseeing sales operations for titles including FourFourTwo, Uefa’s Champions and the Sky Sports Magazine for BSkyB. In his new role at Future, Mark reports to London Sales Director, Malcolm Stoodley and Digital Sales Director, Danny Ward-Lee.

Mark's team will sell advertising across Future's portfolio of games media - encompassing print, online and live events. With rapidly increasing reach and influence, the company's games media now attracts a combined audience of 8.5 million games enthusiasts a month. Future's 14 print titles increased their combined copy sales by 23% in the most recent ABC audit, whilst the popular GamesRadar ( www.gamesradar.com) network of sites now reaches over 6.3m users a month (source: HBX Jan 2008). The GamesRadar network is now so popular amongst young males, that it outperforms the combined monthly audiences for; fhm.com, nme.com, nuts.co.uk, topgear.com and zoo.co.uk

London Sales Director, Malcolm Stoodley, said:

“I’m delighted to welcome Mark to Future. He has considerable experience and expertise in driving advertising sales in male markets, and will help us further strengthen our games offering. Future commands an audience of 8.5m committed gamers each month, and in tandem with our music and film portfolios, we can offer fantastic opportunities for advertisers and agencies to engage with this predominantly male group.”

James Binns, Publishing Director for Future’s Games portfolio, added:

“We now delivers more gamers than ever before to advertisers. Both our web audiences and magazine sales are growing, and our content is more relevant now than it has ever been. Mark will add another dimension to Future's high value advertising and smart creative solutions that gamers talk about and remember.”

ENDS

About Future

Future plc is an international special-interest media group with offices in the UK and US. Founded in 1985 with one magazine, today it creates over 180 special-interest publications, websites and events, with strong portfolios in the games, technology, music, film and active sectors including sports, automotive and crafts. Future exports, syndicates or licenses its publications to 90 countries internationally. The Company employs more than 1,200 people and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (symbol FUTR).

For more information

Will Guyatt, Future UK Media Relations Manager, 01225 822517