Changes to Boards.ie Ltd. company structure

Journal Media

Over the last couple of months, we have been talking to potential partners that we could join with. We were looking for a partner who would:
understand and appreciate the unique place that Boards occupies within the Irish internet landscape
who would be committed to Boards continued growth and development
who would be complementary rather than competitive from a content perspective
who would offer strong synergies from a sales and revenue perspective
who would be of sufficient scale in the digital advertising market, thus ensuring Boards continued sustainability and potential for growth
who would respect the independence of Boards and our community
who would understand and embrace the ethos of the site

After talking with a number of potential partners, it became clear to us that by far the best fit was Journal Media and we were delighted that they felt the same way, seeing the clear synergies and benefits of the two companies coming together.

So what will change?

From a user’s perspective, nothing. Boards will continue to be run as Boards, what you see now is what you’ll see after the integration with Journal Media is completed. Same community, same mods, same rules, same site. There will be a change to the corporate and legal structure of the company that runs Boards but not to the site.

From a sales perspective, there will be some (positive!) changes. For example, when pitching to advertisers there will now be the potential to offer packages that include advertising opportunities across both boards.ie and thejournal.ie. We think this will be attractive to advertisers and help us win more business.

Will there be more ads on the site as a result of the integration?

No, there will be no additional ads. However, after the integration with Journal Media we will be able to more effectively sell the ads that we already have.

Final thoughts

The overriding priority for us has been securing the long term future of Boards and it has become clear to us that it will be hard for us to do that as an independent company.

Journal Media offers an exciting opportunity for Boards to continue its journey for many more years to come. They understand Boards and respect and appreciate our community, they are excited about the opportunity this presents and they are of sufficient scale to effectively compete with any of the major publishing groups operating in Ireland. And this is important … with the growing dominance of search and social (companies like Google and Facebook) and their ability to capture more and more of the digital advertising spend smaller publishers and websites will struggle. If sites like Boards are to have a future we need to have a bigger presence in the marketplace and integrating with Journal Media gives us that presence.

So Boards is here to stay … the integration will just let us say that with increasing confidence as we look to the future.

Sean Coughlan,
CEO, Boards.ie

sexmag wrote: »

The only bad feeling I have is that the journal will own two types of media and have a bigger influence to push any agenda they may or may not have. I know they said they won't but just my gut being sceptical

I'm not saying they do but it makes me uneasy similar to Murdoch and O'Brien having influence over the media.

I hear you but I think there is one fundamental difference between Boards and The Journal and the examples you give above, and it's this ..

Other media companies create and publish their own content which is subject to editorial oversight. Media owners may have the potential to influence editorial policy and therefore exert some degree of control over the content (although I must stress that in my view this is absolutely not the case for The Journal).

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither will The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

And just in case anyone thinks that we may be able to influence things by promoting content we like and suppressing content we don't, the whole site is monitored and policed by our mods and admins, all of whom are volunteers selected from the Boards community and all of whom a) won't let us get away with trying to exert any undue influence on the site, and b) who are not shy about robustly challenging us back if they think we are in any way overstepping the mark

Beasty wrote: »

Obviously how the site is managed is now down to the combined business. However I would be very, very surprised if something like this happened. We are all fully aware that posters would not take kindly to any suggestion the "business" rather than users are driving content (outside the Talk To and verified rep areas, which are presumably continuing as revenue sources)

I'd just to reinforce that point, as I've said Boards content is entirely driven by our users, that is the essence of the site and I think Beasty is quite right is saying that users wouldn't put up with anyone (us here in the office,The Journal or anyone else) trying to dictate or drive the content in a certain direction. And why would either us or The Journal try to do that? Where's the benefit? Ultimately, the business benefits most by having the maximum number of users possible visiting the site. That drives up the audience figures which allows us to sell more advertising for a higher price. Antagonising our users by trying to force certain agendas will only drive down the number of users on the site, not drive it up. And that will mean less revenue, not more. So, it is in everyone's interest not to do that, including from a business perspective.

Fears of The Journal or anyone else interfering on users ability to decide for themselves what content they want to put up on the site do not make sense - any attempt to do that, looked at from a purely business perspective, would be self defeating and negatively impact on revenue.

Beasty wrote: »

Ultimately though any "business" requires funding.

This is very true, there are not insignificant costs associated with keeping the site running and this money has to be found somewhere.

sexmag wrote: »

I'm not being smart but there has been a general fall of usership since 2010

Beasty wrote: »

The tech world has moved on very rapidly. Platforms evolve and people look for something different from their interactions on sites like this.

Boards operates in a very different environment than we did 10 or 20 years ago. The explosion in social media means a lot more competition for people's online time. The move to mobile has required a radical shift in how content is presented and consumed. So keeping an established site like Boards relevant and significant in this rapidly evolving landscape requires some thought and effort and just because we haven't seen the rates of growth that we did in the early days doesn't mean that we have been standing still.

There is an impression among some that Boards isn't a significant site anymore in terms of users and audience numbers. I just don't think this is correct and people don't realise how well Boards continues to do. Both looking at our own data and at external rating services (for example ComScore, Neilsen, Yahoo Alexa) we remain one of the most popular sites in the world for the Irish internet audience. This is no mean achievement for 20 year site and at times I don't think we help our self by being overly negative about the site.