A little personal note to top the below announcement. We’ve spent the last 8.5 years slowly but surely building up our audience to the podcast and newsletter, and whether you’ve been here since the beginning or are a recent subscriber, I want to say a personal thank you for your support.

Firstly and most importantly, the Publisher Summits & Awards are continuing as planned in June, a couple of weeks after Flashes & Flames’ Monetising B2B event (which there are just a couple of tickets left for).

The podcast is on a break until after the Summits, when we’ll be releasing highlights from across the sessions as a summer season.

After the summer…more on that to come later! I’m excited to be working with someone of Colin Morrison’s calibre to see where we can take this.

Enjoy the sunshine, and hopefully see you either at Monetising B2B or our June Publisher Summits.

Esther

Flashes & Flames merger with Media Voices: Plans for new media information services and events

Flashes & Flames Media Ltd, publisher of the weekly newsletter on media, business information and events, has acquired the assets of Media Voices, the producer of The Publisher Podcast and Newsletter, The Publisher Summits, and The Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Awards. The terms are not being disclosed.

The deal brings together Flashes & Flames founder Colin Morrison and Esther Kezia Thorpe and Peter Houston, co-founders of Media Voices to grow the combined business. Media Voices’ third co-founder Chris Sutcliffe will continue as a contributor to the Publisher Podcast and the Publisher Newsletter.

Colin Morrison, who launched Flashes & Flames as a weekly analytical subscription newsletter in 2020 after almost a decade as an industry blog, said this week: “This deal brings together a wealth of experience and resources and, most of all, committed audiences for whom we have exciting plans to expand our information services and events. We believe Flashes & Flames + Media Voices is one of those all too rare opportunities to ensure that 2+2=5. We have lots of plans to pursue ourselves and with others.”

Morrison was formerly a CEO of media companies in the UK, EU and the Asia-Pacific including  for: Reed Elsevier, Axel Springer, Future Plc, EMAP, Hearst and ACP. He has also been an advisor to successive UK education ministers and was awarded a CBE in 2024. 

Flashes & Flames was named as an Influencer in the Folio 100, in the US, and awarded a Warrant for Excellence by the Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers in the UK, the historic venue for its first conference, Monetising B2B, in London on 20 May this year.

Esther Kezia Thorpe and Peter Houston co-founded Media Voices in 2016 with Chris Sutcliffe. Outputs now include a weekly podcast and newsletter focused on publisher products, as well as Masterclasses, and an expanding events stream with the Publisher Newsletter, Print, App and Podcast Summits, and the Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Awards, all taking place in London on June 10-11.

“We’ve learned so much since starting Media Voices as a podcast almost nine years ago,” Esther commented. “It’s gone from being a spare-time podcast to a full media business, and we’re really looking forward to working with Colin to take it to the next level.”

“We’ve iterated Media Voices over the years to take a case-study approach to publisher products and have seen success in making sponsorships our primary revenue stream. Flashes & Flames has built a thriving subscription business. Bringing these together, we can learn a lot from each other and achieve far more together than we could separately.”

Peter Houston says: “Media Voices has been way more successful than we ever dreamed when we started out. But there comes a time when you realise that to take the next big step-up you need to collaborate with others. Media Voices and Flashes & Flames are natural partners –  we do very different things, but broadly for the same companies and many of the same industry leaders. We can see so much potential in working together.

Thorpe began her career working on publisher apps, before expanding into B2B content marketing and media analysis for companies including Dennis Publishing, The Media Briefing, Digital Content Next and What’s New in Publishing. She has been a key driver in Media Voices’ transformation to a fully-fledged B2B business, picking up the PPA 30 under 30 and FIPP Rising Star Awards for the launch of the Publisher Podcast Awards in 2020.

Houston, former Group Content Director for Advanstar Life Sciences, has worked in publishing for almost 40 years. He started his career in Hong Kong before returning to the UK to work with a range of B2B magazine publishers, covering everything from construction to casinos. He has written on the business of publishing for titles from The New Statesman to InPublishing and recently-published the Grub Street Journal, a quarterly print magazine for magazine people.

The agenda for The Publisher Summits, held on 10th-11th June in London, is almost complete. We have four Summits spanning newsletters, print, podcasts and apps, all tailored specifically to publishing companies and the challenges and opportunities they face.

Come and join us at Vauxhall Arches for inspiration, insights and a celebration of the best work at the Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Awards.