IBJ Media Acquires Inside INdiana Business
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIn a deal that combines the state’s most well-known business news brands, IBJ Media has announced its acquisition of Grow INdiana Media Ventures LLC and the Inside INdiana Business platform of business news products, including the Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick television program. Inside INdiana Business will become a new division of IBJ Media, which will be led by Gerry Dick as its president. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“I am thrilled to add Inside INdiana Business television, radio, web and other products to the IBJ Media portfolio. Gerry Dick’s work over the last 20 years to build the Inside INdiana Business platform across our state will be a wonderful compliment to IBJ’s focus on central Indiana,” said Nate Feltman, co-owner and chief executive officer of IBJ Media and publisher of the Indianapolis Business Journal and The Indiana Lawyer. “I am excited for the opportunity to work with Gerry to continue growing IBJ’s and Inside INdiana Business’ coverage and engagement throughout Indiana,” said Feltman, who adds the acquisition is “about growth and local ownership in news.”
Grow INdiana Media Ventures President Gerry Dick calls the deal “a great example of 1+1=3,” referencing the combination of IBJ’s coverage of central Indiana business and Inside Indiana Business’ statewide footprint. “In an age of shrinking media options, we are creating something unique. A larger organization with more resources, talent and technology will enable us to grow statewide and beyond,” Dick said. “This will mean greater opportunities to provide our audiences with relevant business news and information when they want it, where they want it and how they want.”
IBJ Media was founded in 1980. The company owns the award-winning Indianapolis Business Journal, which publishes a weekly newspaper, daily news emails and podcasts covering the central Indiana economy. IBJ Media also owns The Indiana Lawyer, a biweekly newspaper covering the state’s legal community.
Inside INdiana Business adds more than two decades of covering Indiana business from a statewide perspective through TV, radio and daily reporting on digital and web-based properties.
Dick will lead the new Inside INdiana Business division of IBJ as president and the five-time Emmy-winning Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick television show will continue to air across all 15 current stations, as will Inside INdiana Business Radio, which broadcasts on 22 stations statewide.
Both the IBJ and Inside INdiana Business websites will continue to post news and send e-newsletters daily, with IBJ focused on the central Indiana economy and Inside INdiana Business concentrated on statewide business news. The social channels and multimedia platforms for both IBJ and IIB will also remain unchanged.
Feltman says IBJ will explore how the brands can work together to help connect Indiana’s regional economies and host events that will help to strengthen the state’s overall economy. In central Indiana, IBJ hosts 15 events, including industry-specific breakfast panels and awards programs honoring young leaders, women and executives.
Local entrepreneurs Mickey Maurer and Bob Schloss partnered to buy IBJ in 1990, bringing the news organization back to local ownership. Feltman, a former Indiana Secretary of Commerce, became a co-owner in 2017 and increased his ownership stake and became CEO in 2020.
Dick is a veteran broadcast journalist with more than 40 years of news experience, including 13 years as field anchor and reporter at WRTV in Indianapolis. He created what was first known as Indiana Business This Week in 1998, with the belief that there was a void in local business news coverage that could be exploited.
His hunch was right.
The TV show quickly gained a following and in 2000, Dick and technology entrepreneur Scott Jones formed Grow INdiana Media Ventures, a company that would focus on business news statewide and do it through a multimedia approach, leveraging television, radio and, importantly, the promise of the emerging digital age.
The company grew into an integrated portfolio of television, radio, internet, permission-based email and on-demand business news products delivering content watched, heard and read in Indiana, Michigan, Illinois Ohio, Kentucky and markets around the globe.
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