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Big Spark Publishing in expansion mode |
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Tuesday, 10 July 2007 |
Managing director Stuart Parker set up the company for the Midlands based printer in January 2003. He had previously run his own company, Sparker Media. Parker’s remit was to find and publish customer magazines across the UK.
In autumn 2005, the company relocated from Manchester to Bury.
The company employs 20 staff, mainly in editorial and production. There are four sales staff based in a satellite office in Leigh but the majority of the advertising is contracted out to three sales houses: Petersham Publishing, Mediaforce and Gary Savage and Partners.
In April this year the company opened an office in Belfast and there are now four staff in that office preparing for the autumn launch of three contract titles: Stopwatch, Buzz and Cheers.
Stopwatch is a bi monthly title published on behalf of the Northern Irish Civil Service Sports Association. Buzz, the student newspaper of Belfast University, will be published eight times a year starting on 17 September and has a 30,000 print run. Cheers is a fortnightly title aimed at Northern Ireland’s hotel and entertainment/hospitality sectors and is due for launch at the end of this month. It will have a distribution of 20,000.
The company separately acquired in June a 25% share in the West Country Times community newspaper titles. Parker believes there is considerable growth ahead for local specialised community titles allied to web offerings.
Big Spark currently publishes three of BAA’s airport magazines outside the South East: Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast City. Parker told How-Do that they are in advanced discussions with BAA to extend the contract to include Aberdeen and Stansted airports.
The company has a number of other contracts with companies and organisations including Crowne Plaza hotels, Pontins, Makro, Caudwell Communications and Littlewoods.
Parker has also recently won the contract to publish Rene Carayol's Inspired Leaders Network proposed new quarterly publication, 'Be Inspired'. The print run will be over 20,000 he claimed with 10,500 copies mailed to members of Carayol’s network, 5,000 handed out at future Be Inspired seminars with the balance available at Eurostar’s executive lounges and in the train’s first class carriages. Issue one is due for publication this autumn.
Prior to establishing Sparker Media, Parker was a former marketing services manager at the Manchester Evening News and helped create the “Defence Publications Unit” at the paper together with the MD at the time, Tony Boore.www.bigspark.co.uk
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