RBMedia

Last updated
RBMedia
RBMedia logo.png
Predecessor Recorded Books
Founded2017;7 years ago (2017)
FounderShamrock Advisors
Country of origin United States
Headquarters location Landover, Maryland
Publication types Audiobooks, Books
Imprints Recorded Books
HighBridge
Tantor Media
Kalorama Audio
Christian Audio
Ascent Audio
W.F. Howes
WaveSound
BookaVivo
GraphicAudio
Owner(s)
Official website https://rbmediaglobal.com/

RBMedia is an audiobook publishing company with sales globally. Headquartered in Landover, Maryland, it claims to be the largest audiobook publisher in the world. [1]

Contents

The company was founded in 2017 through the acquisition of independent audiobook companies, which now operate as imprints of RBMedia. Among them are: Recorded Books, Tantor Media, HighBridge Audio, ChristianAudio, Gildan Media, W.F. Howes, Wavesound, GraphicAudio.

With studios in New York and elsewhere, it is based near the former Recorded Books headquarters. After being assembled by Shamrock Advisors and controlled by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, it was acquired in September 2023 by H.I.G. Capital and Francisco Partners.

History

Recorded Books

Recorded Books (later to be the "RB" in RBMedia) was founded in Maryland in 1978 and was a pioneer in the industry. [2] When it was acquired in December 1999 by Haights Cross Communications, the company operated as its division. [3]

Eight months after purchasing HighBridge Audio from Workman Publishing, [4] the division announced the acquisition of Tantor Media in January 2015. [5] Later the same year, Recorded Books was sold to Shamrock Advisors, a private equity firm. [6]

RBMedia

When it was organized in April 2017 [7] and became known as RBMedia, its imprints included Recorded Books, HighBridge Audio, Tantor Media, ChristianAudio, Gildan Media, W.F. Howes (UK), and Wavesound (Australia). [8] It would sell or distribute titles directly to customers through Audiobooks.com, libraries, and resellers such as Audible. [9]

In the month that its new name was revealed, the company acquired Audiobooks.com, [10] which would launch in the UK six months later. [11] In September 2017, RBMedia purchased Gildan Media, a business book publisher. [12]

In July 2018, Shamrock Advisors sold the company to private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). [13]

In March 2020, RBMedia acquired GraphicAudio, a producer of immersive full-cast and sound-effect productions with brands such as Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, Vault Comics and authors such as Brandon Sanderson, Peter V. Brett, Michael J. Sullivan, R. A. Salvatore, William W. Johnstone, and Brent Weeks. [14]

Three months later, it sold its library assets to OverDrive, Inc.; this includes RBDigital, an app and service for the distribution of digital content. RBMedia and OverDrive are both owned by KKR, with KKR's OverDrive purchase concluded in June 2020. The sale of RBMedia's library division to OverDrive represents a merger of KKR's related assets. [15] [16]

In March 2021, RBMedia acquired Booka, a Barcelona-based audiobook publishing company rebranded as BookaVivo. [17] In May, the company acquired McGraw-Hill Professional's audiobook business including the entire catalog of previously published titles and exclusive rights to all future titles. [18]

In August 2021, RBMedia launched Ascent Audio for business focused books. The catalog includes audiobooks from the previous acquisition of Gildan Media and McGraw-Hill Professional. It claimed to be the world's largest catalog of business audiobooks. [19]

In December, a month after announcing that it had sold Audiobooks.com to Storytel for $135 million, [20] RBMedia acquired the audiobook self-publisher Author’s Republic, including its traditional audiobook subsidiary Novel Audio. [21] In January 2022, it purchased the German audiobook publisher ABOD, with works to be published under the RBmedia Verlag brand. [22]

In 2023, it was announced that KKR sold RBMedia to H.I.G. Capital and Francisco Partners. [23]

Related Research Articles

Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. It has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the Germany-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kohlberg Kravis Roberts</span> American investment manager

KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds. As of December 31, 2022, the firm had completed more than 690 private equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $700 billion of total enterprise value. As of December 31, 2022, assets under management (AUM) and fee paying assets under management (FPAUM) were $504 billion and $412 billion, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon & Schuster</span> American publishing company

Simon & Schuster LLC is an American publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017 Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.

An audiobook is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audible (service)</span> Online audiobook and podcast service

Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer. The service is owned by Audible, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.

Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner on March 31, 2006. Its headquarters are located at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hachette is considered one of the "big five" publishing companies, along with Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. In one year, HBG publishes approximately 1400+ adult books, 300 books for young readers, and 450 audiobook titles. In 2017, the company had 167 books on the New York Times bestseller list, 34 of which reached No. 1.

GraphicAudio is an audiobook publishing imprint of RBMedia. Its tagline is "A Movie In Your Mind". The GraphicAudio format includes a full cast of actors, narration, sound effects and cinematic music. GraphicAudio has published over 1,600 action-adventure titles and over 180 series in the fantasy, science fiction, post-apocalyptic, comic and western genres.

OverDrive, Inc. is a worldwide digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, online magazines and streaming video titles. The company provides digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, public libraries, K-12 schools, colleges, universities, corporations, legal industries, and formerly retailers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Brick</span> American audiobook narrator and actor

Scott Brick is an American actor, writer and award-winning narrator of over 800 audiobooks, including popular titles such as Washington: A Life, Moneyball, Cloud Atlas, A Princess of Mars, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Atlas Shrugged, Sideways, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I, Robot, Mystic River, Helter Skelter, Patriot Games, Bid Time Return, In Cold Blood, the Dune series, Ender's Game, and Fahrenheit 451. He has narrated works for a number of high-profile authors, including Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Stephen J. Cannell, William Faulkner, Nelson DeMille, Brad Meltzer, Harlan Coben, Gregg Hurwitz, David Baldacci, Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Joseph Finder, Tom De Haven, Stephen R. Donaldson, Nathaniel Philbrick, Terry Brooks, Steve Berry, Gene Wilder, Philip K. Dick, Dennis Lehane, Douglas J. Preston, Lincoln Child, Ayn Rand, Justin Cronin, Carl Hiaasen, Erik Larson, and Isaac Asimov, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BMG Rights Management</span> International music company

BMG Rights Management GmbH is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackstone Audio</span> Audiobook publisher

Blackstone Audio is an independent audiobook publisher in the United States, offering over 25,000 audiobooks. The company is based in Ashland, Oregon, with five in-house recording studios. Blackstone distributes directly to consumers via their subscription e-commerce site, Downpour.com, and to the library market with titles from Blackstone, MacMillan, Hachette, HarperCollins, Brilliance, BBC and Disney Press.

AudioGO was a British publisher of audiobooks and a range of spoken word and large-print titles. It was majority owned by AudioGO Ltd, and minority owned by BBC Worldwide. It was formed in 2010, when AudioGO purchased a majority share in BBC Audiobooks, and traded until it went into administration in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoopla (digital media service)</span> North American provider of digital media for public libraries

Hoopla is a web and mobile (Android/iOS) library media streaming platform launched in 2010 for audio books, comics, e-books, movies, music, and TV. Patrons of a library that supports Hoopla have access to its collection of digital media.

Recorded Books is an audiobook imprint of RBMedia, a publishing company with operations in countries globally. Recorded Books was formerly an independent audiobook company before being purchased and re-organized under RBMedia, where it is now an imprint. Recorded Books was founded in 1978 by Henry Trentman, one of the pioneers in the audiobook industry.

Barbara Rosenblat is a British actress. She is best known as a prolific narrator of audiobooks, for which AudioFile named her a Golden Voice. She has also appeared on screen such as in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black as the character Miss Rosa.

<i>A Sinner in Mecca: A Gay Muslims Hajj of Defiance</i> 2017 memoir by Parvez Sharma

A Sinner in Mecca: A Gay Muslim's Hajj of Defiance is the first book by Parvez Sharma, released on August 15, 2017, by publisher BenBella Books. The book focuses on Wahhabism, Daesh, Saudi Arabia, and the position of Islam in the Indian sub-continent. Sharma calls the book the final product of his "Islam Trilogy". The author recorded an audiobook version of this book for Tantor Media on December 14, 2017. In 2018, Parvez Sharma's book, A Sinner In Mecca: A Gay Muslim's Hajj of Defiance was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the category of Gay Memoir/Biography and received Honorable Mention in the LGBT Nonfiction category for the 2017 Foreword INDIES.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Storytel</span> Swedish audiobook company

Storytel AB is a Stockholm-based e-book and audiobook subscription service.

Pushkin Industries is an American publisher of podcasts and audiobooks. It was co-founded in 2018 by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg. As of 2021, it hosts over 25 podcasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talking Book World</span> American retail chain

Talking Book World was an American retail chain which sold and rented audiobooks on CDs and cassette tapes. Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, the chain operated more than 45 stores across eight U.S. states and Canada at its peak. It was among the largest U.S. chains specializing in audiobooks.

References

  1. ↑ RBMedia (February 10, 2020). "At the Center of It All: RBmedia Spreads Its Wings". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  2. ↑ Virgil L. P. Blake (1990). "Something New Has Been Added: Aural Literacy and Libraries". Information Literacies for the Twenty-First Century. G. K. Hall & Co. p. 205. Recorded Books and Books on Tape, pioneers in this new sound recording format, recorded unabridged versions of books on cassette.
  3. ↑ Shannon Maughan (September 6, 2004). "An Independent Spirit". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved January 12, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Recorded Books Buys HighBridge Audio". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2014-09-15.
  5. ↑ Milliot, Jim (2015-01-06). "Recorded Books Buys Tantor Media". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2015-02-01.
  6. ↑ "Shamrock Advisors Buys Recorded Books". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2016-04-11.
  7. ↑ Shannon Maughan (May 26, 2017). "How RBmedia Came to Life". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  8. ↑ "A new global powerhouse takes center-stage in spoken audio and digital media distribution technology". recordedbooks.com. April 11, 2017. Retrieved September 26, 2017.
  9. ↑ Shannon Maughan (May 26, 2017). "How RBmedia Came to Life". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  10. ↑ Heloise Wood (April 11, 2017). "Newly formed RBmedia buys Audiobooks.com". The Bookseller. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  11. ↑ Natasha Onwuemezi (October 18, 2017). "Audiobooks.com launches in UK". The Bookseller. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  12. ↑ Michael Kozlowski (September 25, 2017). "RB Media Acquires Gildan and Now Offers Business Audiobooks". Good Ereader. Retrieved September 26, 2017.
  13. ↑ Jim Milliot (July 16, 2018). "Equity Firm Buys RBmedia". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  14. ↑ "RBmedia Acquires Leading Producer of Dramatized Audiobooks". rbmediaglobal.com. March 10, 2020. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  15. ↑ Scott Suttell (June 24, 2020). "Digital media company OverDrive buys the library assets of audiobook producer RBmedia" . Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  16. ↑ "OverDrive to Acquire RBdigital from RBmedia". prnewswire.com. June 23, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  17. ↑ "RBMedia Acquires Spain's Booka". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  18. ↑ Michael Kozlowski (May 11, 2021). "RBmedia purchases McGraw-Hill Professional's audiobook business". Good Reader. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  19. ↑ Michael Kozlowski (August 3, 2021). "RBmedia launches Ascent Audio for business focused audiobooks". GoodReader. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  20. ↑ Ruth Comerford (November 13, 2021). "Storytel extends into English language market with $135m Audiobooks deal". The Bookseller . Retrieved November 13, 2021.
  21. ↑ "RBmedia Acquires Author's Republic Self-Published Audiobooks Platform". December 2021.
  22. ↑ Michael Kozlowski (January 5, 2022). "RBmedia now has German-Language Audiobooks". GoodReader. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  23. ↑ "Francisco Partners teams up with H.I.G. Capital to acquire RBmedia". The MBS Group. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.