FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UK JOURNALIST TIM ADLER TO EDIT DEADLINE|LONDON

LOS ANGELES – January 10, 2010 – Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC)’s Jay Penske and Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke today announced the hiring of Tim Adler, a veteran UK entertainment business journalist, as the editor of the new Deadline|London which will go live later this month at Deadline.com. Previously, Adler was the editor of Screen Finance, the biweekly trade magazine covering film and television funding launched by the Financial Times Group in 1988 and then purchased by Informa in 2000. His distinguished background also includes authoring two non-fiction books about the film industry, and giving evidence to the most recent Parliamentary investigation into the British film industry. He was recently recalled to testify before the House of Lords’ communications committee.
 
With Adler’s hiring, Deadline.com enters its next phase of editorial and geographic expansion, with future plans to include the hiring of a senior entertainment business journalist to launch Deadline|New York. Finke will remain Deadline.com's general manager and editor in chief, and editor and founder of Deadline|Hollywood, and Adler will assist her in making Deadline.com a “must-read” for influencers and leaders in the global business of entertainment and media. Adler will cover both the UK and Europe in the Deadline.com tradition of shattering the mold of traditional reporting and creating a new paradigm for delivering news, analysis, and opinion with New Media immediacy.

Adler will also help MMC continue its rapid growth as one of the most dynamic companies to watch in the digital media arena. MMC’s global reach provides the perfect platform to scale the impact of Tim Adler’s and Nikki Finke’s singular editorial voices at Deadline|London and Deadline|Hollywood respectively, and to strengthen the company’s position as an important player in the entertainment space. They embody MMC’s mission: to provide original, authoritative, and conversational content on the web.

“Tim combines immense editorial talent with critical insights into the European business of media and entertainment,” said Jay Penske, CEO and Founder of Deadline.com’s parent company Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC). He continued, “I know that, in his new role, Tim will make a significant contribution to our growing business, and further accelerate Deadline.com’s leadership position as we expand overseas.”

Said Finke: “More than half of Hollywood’s revenue now comes from what it calls ‘overseas’. And this percentage is only going to increase over the next years. PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts that the European film and television market will be worth $30.1 billion by 2013, which is two-thirds of the size of the U.S. and Canadian market. That’s why the entertainment industry pays so much attention to what’s going on internationally, and Deadline.com must, too.”

She continued: “Years ago, I was a London correspondent for The Associated Press, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the UK. I wanted to ensure that Deadline|London was in excellent hands. Hiring Tim Adler was an easy decision because of his singular expertise and experience in breaking news in the entertainment industry. And I should mention he’s also very funny with a great personality. Tim will ensure Deadline|London is informative and authoritative, conversational and lively.”

Said Adler: “I’m thrilled that Nikki has picked me to run her Deadline|London bureau. It’s an honor to be working alongside her and Deadline|Hollywood, which is a triumph of old-fashioned hard-nosed reporting in the digital age.”

Starting in 1996, Adler became Deputy Editor of the influential biweekly trade magazine Screen Finance, covering film and television funding when it was then owned by the Financial Times Group. In 2000, Informa Telecoms & Media purchased all of the Financial Times Group's business-to-business publications, and appointed Adler as Editor of its New Media Markets trade. In 2001, Adler returned to Screen Finance as Editor until he stepped down in mid-December of 2009 to join Deadline.com.

Adler also has written about the entertainment business for the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Times, among others. Adler was the only business journalist asked to give evidence at the most recent Parliamentary investigation into the British film industry. He was recently recalled to give evidence before the House of Lords’ communications committee. He regularly comments for UK media on film and television, including BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, BBC World Service, and Sky News. Adler has written two non-fiction books about the movie industry and is working on a third. In 2007, Bloomsbury published his exposé, Hollywood and The Mob, named “Book of the Week” by one UK newspaper, and “Critic’s Choice” by another. In 2004, Methuen put out Adler's first book, The Producers: Money, Movies and Who Really Calls the Shots. He is currently writing a biography of Oscar-winning film and theatre director Tony Richardson.

Adler's hiring comes as Deadline.com’s Deadline|Hollywood now has a larger readership than Variety and The Hollywood Reporter combined after just four years in existence. November 2009 comScore ratings data showed Deadline.com exceeded 1,111,000 unique visitors, 2,397,000 visits, and 4,000,000 page views. That surpassed the combined numbers on both Variety.com (515,000 unique visitors, 881,000 visits, 2,000,000 page views) and HollywoodReporter.com (336,000 unique visitors, 429,000 visits, 1,000,000 page visitors) and their print editions. (comScore is the web’s leading analytics and traffic source.)

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