Media & Publishing
We are considered one of the top legal advisers to the media, and the publishing sector in particular. We act for a raft of high-profile, blue-chip UK and international brands from a client base that includes newspaper groups, business and consumer magazine publishers and owners of academic and STM journals and titles. More broadly, we advise broadcast and production rights companies, digital radio brands, music publishers, authors and literary estates.
We have worked closely with our media and publishing clients as they have evolved to capitalise on emerging digital opportunities. Today, many publishers are countering falling print circulation by enhancing the digital proposition as well as exploring diverse new revenue streams that draw on the core strength of their brands. They are embracing, amongst other things, live events, bespoke content offerings and collaborations and generally harnessing the increasing value of the consumer and business data they hold.
Within our offering to media organisations, our lawyers advise on corporate matters including mergers and acquisitions and related competition law issues. To support the ongoing business, and to undertake any form of transformational change, we advise on a wide range of commercial contracts covering the likes of IT and technology acquisition, outsourcing, joint ventures and collaborations, sponsorship, advertising and licensing, as well as customer contracts and supplies of goods and services.
Alongside this has been the growing need of media organisations to understand and work with their responsibilities in relation to privacy, data protection and complex direct marketing and ePrivacy issues. We also have a highly-regarded and longstanding reputation for advising media organisations on employment law issues as well as dedicated specialists able to provide the highest-level pre-publication advice and complaints handling, as well as contentious and non-contentious intellectual property advice.
We understand how media businesses work, what their long-term aims are, and what drives them. We regularly support clients on their most complex, high-value and business critical initiatives. They choose us because we can deliver the high-quality, proactive and commercial advice they need across all their business activities, as well as in traditional 'media' law.
