MANHASSET, NY/MILAN – CMP’s Internet Group last month concluded a licensing agreement with Italian publishing giant Mondadori that will allow the Italians to use CMP’s technical content on its Web site, mondadori.com.
“They’ll translate our content into Italian and use it on their aggregate news feed. We hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship,” said Bill Howard, senior vice president of global sales and marketing at CMP.
“They have a large Web presence as mondadori.com and a large technical publishing operation, so there is the possibility of doing other business. I like them as partners. They’re big. They think strategically and they’re smart. It’s a good fit.”
The agreement gives Mondadori access to a host of CMP online products and components, including TechWeb and WinMag.com. The content can also be used on Web versions of Mondadori’s major magazines.
The Italian book publisher went online in spring last year with news, women’s leisure and technology titles, as well as books from the Einaudi and Electa labels.
The deal, Howard said, came about “in the normal course of our licensing activities. We have 91 license agreements in 32 countries, and most of them are in print. We have some online, but this is the biggest Web deal we have struck so far.
“My licensing department is responsible for expanding brands overseas and globally. I believe that if you want to be a player today you must be global in the media space.
“A lot of our clients were much smaller than we were when we started out and are multibillion-dollar computer conglomerates today, and that’s based on having a global portfolio.
“We’re looking to expand into other languages. We’re obviously sensitive about English-language feeds because, in some of our groups, English is the lingua franca of our program business and that makes it easier to steal.
“When they’re translated it is easier to make sure that the content doesn’t wander off where it shouldn’t be. We’re looking at all territories around the world – Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe obviously.”
CMP licenses content to other technology companies both in the US and overseas where the focus is on print and trade shows, as well as “Internet space where we see the biggest opportunity for growth,” Howard said.
