Media: Future appoints UK managing director

The position has been vacant since Colin Morrison resigned last September.

Price was previously publishing director of the entertainment and games division. He joined Future in 1998 from Pearson New Entertainment Video where he was head of marketing. At Future, he has held a number of marketing and publishing positions in the games and entertainment sector.

A Future spokeswoman said that the delay in replac-ing Morrison was due to an exhaustive interview process that has been supervised by director John Mellon, the former head of IPC.

Last week, Morrison resurfaced as head of a UK division of Kerry Packer's Australian company Consolidated Press.

Future Network chief executive Greg Ingham has been caretaking the managing director role for the past six months.

Future has gone through two years of stabilisation in the wake of the dotcom crash, which saw the publisher nearly go to the wall.

Price said that his remit was to oversee launches and acquisitions. He would not be drawn on sectors of interest, but added that he would be looking to fill gaps in Future's portfolio and that the focus would be on magazines, rather than new media.

Future's profits were up by 21% last year to £22.7m, with turnover up 11% to £182.7m, according to financial results released last week.

However, circulation performance has been mixed, reflecting its involvement in some difficult magazine markets, particularly computers and computer games.

In the ABCs for July to December 2003, 26 of its 44 audited magazines recorded sales declines.

Computer Arts plummeted 23.8%, PlayStation 2 Official Magazine slumped 4.6%, while PSM2 crashed by 37.6%.

This article was first published on Marketing