Ryan Seacrest’s Company to Sell a Stake to Clear Channel

Ryan Seacrest, who already is a host, producer and spokesman for Clear Channel, will soon be an investment partner as well.

On Tuesday, the radio conglomerate is expected to announce its acquisition of a minority stake in Mr. Seacrest’s television and film production company, financing future growth and allowing for new collaborations between the two.

The investment in Mr. Seacrest — who will remain the main owner of Ryan Seacrest Productions — comes weeks after Clear Channel Radio renamed itself Clear Channel Media and Entertainment to promote its move into other media, including television.

Separately, the parties involved said, Mr. Seacrest also will work with the two private equity firms that own Clear Channel, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, to identify new investments and acquisitions. The firms have committed as much as $300 million to the initiative, which could focus on music publishers, technology makers or other companies. Mr. Seacrest will help the firms find opportunities and close deals.

The investments attest to the backstage business ambitions of Mr. Seacrest, who became famous a decade ago for hosting “American Idol” on Fox. While remaining a television and radio host, he is simultaneously building a diversified media company by linking up with companies like Clear Channel, the talent agency CAA and the events promoter AEG.

Mr. Seacrest said by telephone Monday night that the Clear Channel investment was an “efficient route for future growth” and said he would tap into the company’s marketing assets, including its many radio stations and Web sites.

Separately, in a deal with CAA and AEG that was announced this month, Mr. Seacrest will have a stake in AXS TV, a cable channel that will replace HDNet this summer.

The parties involved in Tuesday’s announcement would not disclose the size of Clear Channel’s investment in Mr. Seacrest’s production company, but it is expected to produce scripted and unscripted TV shows and other types of content for Clear Channel. Ryan Seacrest Productions currently makes “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and related shows for E! and is preparing new reality shows for CMT and Bravo.

Robert Pittman, the chief executive of Clear Channel, praised Mr. Seacrest as a businessman and said the collaboration was a chance “to share in some of the success we think he’s going to have, and to enable some of it.”

Mr. Seacrest remains in talks with Comcast about an expanded relationship with its E! channel and other parts of NBCUniversal. Such an expansion could include a role on NBC’s “Today” show, prime-time specials and a presence on the company’s coverage of the Olympics.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Seacrest said that the Clear Channel investment would not preclude his productions for NBCUniversal or any other network or studio.

Once the negotiations with NBC conclude, Mr. Seacrest will still have at least one other bit of unfinished business: whether to renew his contract with “American Idol.” His current contract is set to expire this spring, and both he and Fox have signaled that he will probably remain on the show.

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Job Search Engine Adzuna.co.uk Receives £500k Investment Backing from Index Ventures

LONDON, January 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ –
Adzuna, the next-generation job search engine, has today announced it has raised £500k investment financing from Index Ventures, The Accelerator Group and existing investors including Passion Capital. The latest funding follows a seed round last year.
Launched in July 2011, Adzuna classifieds aims to become the world’s leading search engine for classifieds, bringing together all the ads and connecting users with them in new ways.
Adzuna collates almost every job ad in the UK in real time from hundreds of websites, including all of the major job boards as well as sources like the London 2012 Olympics, Williams Formula 1 and the Royal Household. In addition to listing around 500,000 vacancies, the unique Adzuna Connect feature helps users “get hired with a little help from their friends” by connecting them to Adzuna jobs where they have first or second-degree connections on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The site also offers a wealth of data about the jobs and companies recruiting, from average salary data to employee reviews, interview questions and “CEO Approval ratings”.
Since launch in July, Adzuna has rapidly grown to hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, and was named a Top 20 Startup of 2011 by Startups.co.uk, a finalist in the Website of the Year awards, and shortlisted for the Europas.
This latest round of funding will be used to drive further product innovation around social and data, and expand into other verticals as well as international markets.
Robin Klein, Venture Partner at Index, said, “We’re delighted to be working with Andrew and Doug, experienced entrepreneurs whom we know well from their track records at Gumtree, Qype and Zoopla. The Adzuna team has achieved a great deal in a short period of time, and we believe the innovations they continue to bring to the market will change the way people search for classified ads.”
Doug Monro, Co-Founder of Adzuna, said: “We’re really excited to have top-class investors like Index, The Accelerator Group and Passion involved. We are passionate about making the classifieds search experience fundamentally better for users in the UK and beyond. This will help us towards that vision.”
About Adzuna
Adzuna.co.uk (http://www.adzuna.co.uk) is a search engine for classified ads which makes it easier for you to find the right job locally – and soon properties and cars too. We search thousands of sites so you don’t have to, bring together millions of ads so you can find them all in one place, and organize them with useful features so that you can easily find what you need.
Adzuna founders Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro met working at Gumtree in 2005. They stayed in the local internet space for the next 5 years and finally hatched the Adzuna plan in 2010 on the back of an envelope in a central London pub. The site was launched in July 2011.
Doug Monro was most recently COO of property portal Zoopla, leading the growth of the team from 5 to 75 people and the site to number 2 in UK property with 5M visitors a month. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK’s largest classified ads site, and has worked for eBay UK, Bain & Co and Unilever. He has a BA in English from Cambridge and an MBA with distinction from Kellogg.
Andrew Hunter was mostly recently VP Marketing and General Manager of local review site Qype, where he grew the site from 0-17m monthly unique visitors in 2 years. Before Qype, Andrew was Head of Marketing at Gumtree.com and ran Search Marketing for the Thomas Cook Group. Andrew has a BSc in Business & Economics from Oxford Brookes University.
About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm specializing in investments in information technology and life sciences companies. The firm invests in seed, early and growth stage start-ups across US and Europe. Since its inception in 1996, Index Ventures has backed visionary entrepreneurs who have taken on incumbents and built seminal companies in a number of growth sectors including: open source software companies such as MySQL, Trolltech, Zend and Pentaho; broadband and VOIP companies such as Virata, Skype, FON and Rebtel; Internet service companies such as Dropbox, Path, Betfair, Oanda, Last.fm, SpotRunner, Lovefilm, Stardoll and Netvibes; and life science companies such as Genmab, ParAllele Biosciences, BioXell, 7TM Pharma, Addex Pharmaceutical and PanGenetics.
About Passion Capital
Passion Capital (http://passioncapital.com) was established in March 2011 by Stefan Glaenzer, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero with the aim of becoming the premier early stage digital media and technology investment firm in the UK. The partners have more than 50 years’ collective experience in entrepreneurial, founding and executive operational roles in technology firms.
About The Accelerator Group (TAG)
Based in London, The Accelerator Group (TAG) has been an investor in early stage and start-up companies since 1995. They focus on the Internet services, eCommerce and multi-channel retail sectors, investing primarily in the US and Europe. TAG’s current investments include: Moo, Wonga, Moshi Monsters, Graze, Zoopla, Skimlinks and previously: LoveFilm, Fizzback, Tweetdeck and Dopplr.
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Skyscanner Travel Trends Report 2012 Now Available

EDINBURGH, Scotland–(BUSINESS WIRE)– In its new 2012 Travel Trends Report, Skyscanner has revealed that Estonia, Russia, Iraq and Cape Verde are all emerging destinations likely to see a significant rise in interest from UK tourists over the coming year.
The flight comparison website, which has over 15 million users a month, analysed its vast data on user flight searches to produce the report on global travel trends. Overall, Spain remains the most popular choice for British holidaymakers for a fourth consecutive year, however in the ‘Destinations of The Future’ section of the report, Skyscanner highlights a number of more exotic locations.
Where are we going?
Estonia is the highest climbing destination with a search increase of 90% year on year. This is largely attributed to the increased publicity the country has received following Tallinn’s stint as a European Capital of Culture in 2011, however other Eastern European destinations have also seen a significant rise in popularity. A 32% increase in interest for Russia suggests that the world’s biggest country will get a bigger share of tourists over the coming year. With major sporting events looming (Winter Olympics in 2014, and the World Cup Football in 2018), Russia’s profile as a tourist destination is set to rise substantially.
While Estonia, which adopted the Euro in 2011, and also Greece and Italy appear to be performing well in the global battle for tourists, other Euro destinations have not fared so well; Portugal, Ireland, Germany and Slovakia all saw minimal rises in searches, well below the Skyscanner site average.
Following years of conflict, Iraq looks to be gaining more visitors from the UK in 2012. Whilst search volumes remain low, the country saw an increase of 75% in interest, likely to be mainly Iraqi nationals visiting. However, the country has also been stepping up its marketing efforts as a destination for cultural and religious tourism with its second appearance at London’s World Travel Market. A number of travel companies are now also offering adventure tours to Iraq for trekking, biking and backcountry skiing.
With a rise of 51% year on year, The Cape Verde Islands, which lie off the west coast of Africa, are becoming an increasingly attractive winter sun alternative to other mid haul destinations such as The Canaries and Egypt, the latter of which has seen a 12% drop in searches from the UK .
Who’s coming?
It’s the Russian market which has grown the most in the last 12 months, with over 100% rise in searches to UK. However with London set to take the world stage for the Olympics in 2012 it is actually the Australians who top the table in terms of the number of visitors while it is the Japanese who are seeing the biggest increase in searches over the Olympic period with a 300% rise. Visitors from The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland follow closely behind.
The full report is now available at: http://www.skyscanner.net/news/Skyscanner%20Travel%20Trends%202012.pdf
Ends
About Skyscanner
Skyscanner is Europe’s leading travel search site providing instant online comparisons for millions of flights on over a thousand airlines, as well as car hire and hotels
Follow Skyscanner on Twitter and Facebook


This article is from http://tourism9.com/

Olympics, Titanic, Cuba shape travel in 2012

NEW YORK — The Olympics, the centennial of the Titanic sinking, new rules on travel to Cuba, a once-a-decade horticultural festival in the Netherlands and a continued reliance on technology and personalization will all help shape travel in 2012.
Here are some details on these and other destinations and trends.
EVENTS: The Summer Olympic Games take place in London, July 27-Aug. 12. For those without tickets, Hyde Park and other places will host live broadcasts of the games on giant outdoor screens. A three-month arts festival beginning June 21 will add a cultural component, from Shakespeare to music to street performers.
Great Britain will also celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee June 2-5. She is only the second British monarch after Queen Victoria to mark 60 years on the throne.
The Netherlands is planning Floriade, a horticultural expo that takes place once a decade. A 160-acre park with five different floral and nature themes opens April 5-Oct. 7, in Venlo, about 85 miles or two hours by train from Amsterdam; http://www.floriade.com.
The European Capitals of Culture for 2012 are Maribor, Slovenia, known for wines, a historic town center and nearby forests, waterfalls and moors; and Guimaraes, Portugal, known for crafts like goldsmithing, pottery and embroidery, and for its roots as the birthplace of Portugal’s first king, who established the country as an independent kingdom from Spain. Arabella Bowen, executive director of editorial and content strategy at the travel guidebook publisher Fodor’s, says both destinations are great values for food and hotels, with interesting attractions away from the crowds.
In the U.S., the bicentennial of the War of 1812 will be marked with tall ships, educational events and fireworks in several destinations, including June 6-12 in Norfolk, Va., and June 13-19 in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay.
TITANIC 100TH: The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank April 15, 1912, on its maiden voyage from England to New York. A variety of events in 2012 — including some cruises — will mark 100 years since the tragedy in which more than 1,500 died. Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Maritime Museum of the Atlantic offers an extensive permanent Titanic exhibit but will also be hosting special exhibits and events for the April anniversary and into the summer. Visitors can also tour Halifax’s Fairview Lawn Cemetery, where 121 Titanic victims are buried.
The Titanic was built in Belfast, Ireland, and an enormous waterfront development called Titanic Quarter is taking shape on the site of the former shipyard, with hotels, eateries, parks, theaters and galleries. Titanic Belfast, an ultra-modern building whose shape and silvery color evokes ship hulls on the water, is set to open in April with Titanic-themed galleries and interactive exhibits. Southampton, England, which lost 549 locals when the ship went down, mostly crew members, is also opening a new interactive museum, Sea City, focusing on various aspects of the Titanic story.
Far from those ports, the Titanic Pigeon Forge attraction in Tennessee is a half-scale, three-deck reproduction of the ship. A centennial tribute “Night to Remember” is planned for April 14.
DESTINATIONS: For “up and coming” destinations for 2012, Croatia, Vietnam and Panama were named in an annual survey of 640 travel agents and owners from Travel Leaders. For top 10 international destinations based on 2012 booking data, the Travel Leaders survey listed Caribbean cruises; Cancún, Mexico; Playa del Carmen, Mexico; Mediterranean cruises; Rome; London; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Paris; Montego Bay and Negril, Jamaica.
Fodor’s Bowen put Cuba on her list of top destinations for 2012. U.S. citizens can now travel to Cuba legally even if they don’t have relatives there under new U.S. State Department regulations permitting certain types of trips. “Everyone wants to get in to see the country before everything changes,” said Bowen.
Interest in Myanmar is also increasing. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently visited, and an organization founded by activist Aung San Suu Kyi said it welcomes responsible tourism. Abercrombie & Kent has filled several tours and just added another departure for fall 2012.
NORTHERN LIGHTS: The aurora borealis or northern lights, those mysterious curtains of color seen in Northern Hemisphere skies, are caused by a cycle of magnetic activity on the sun. The cycle lasts about 11 years, and experts say a period of low activity is ending.
Some folks are predicting this will be a banner year for northern lights. The University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute, which publishes auroral forecasts at http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast, doesn’t necessarily foresee peak viewing in 2012, but agrees that we are entering a period of “increasing solar activity” with “more active, colorful aurora during the normal viewing season,” late August to late April (when there’s less daylight than during summer).
TECHNOLOGY: The smartphone has become the must-have tool for travel, offering GPS navigation, online bookings, scannable check-ins, and QR codes and locaters with information geared to wherever you are.
Ad agency JWT’s travel trend list for 2012 mentions apps like Uber, a cab-dispatching service; Postagram, which turns snapshots into postcards; and Vocre, an app that translates spoken words into other languages.
But never mind crowd-sourcing from websites where phony reviews and picky consumers make it hard to figure out the real deal. Instead, travelers are friend-sourcing, with sites like Trippy.com showing recommendations from your social networks. Another new app, Wenzani, takes content from guidebook publishers Lonely Planet, Frommer’s and DK and integrates it with advice from your friends and social networks.
ELECTION AND ECONOMY: Do presidential elections affect travel? A recent survey found 75 percent of U.S. Tour Operators Association members believe travel decreases in election years. Respondents said uncertainty and negative rhetoric keeps people home.
Still, 75 percent of USTOA members anticipate a growth in sales in 2012 as the economy improves. Eighty percent of agents and owners at Travel Leaders also said bookings for 2012 are so far equal to or higher than 2011.

This article is from http://tourism9.com/