Halifax-based CP Media acquires Harrogate’s Eye Airports

Outdoor advertising specialist CP Media has acquired Eye Airports, the market leader in UK regional airport advertising.

Founded in 2010, CP Media, provides direct media sales services to UK local authorities and companies.

Harrogate-based Eye Airports has the advertising and promotional rights for 19 UK regional airports, including Newcastle, Bristol, Exeter, Inverness, Derry, Humberside, Newquay and the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

The acquisition of Eye Airports by CP Media adds 80 digital sites and more than 500 high quality outdoor sites to their existing portfolio of 3,000 sites in some of the UK’s busiest city and town centre locations.

Halifax-based CP Media firm has doubled its workforce and turnover in the last 18 months. It is now building on this strong organic growth with strategic acquisitions and partnerships.

In August they announced a strategic partnership to market Top Screen Media’s premium digital screens located in reception areas at major city office buildings occupied by, among others, Google, HSBC and Samsung.

It also agreed another strategic partnership to market Kong Media’s large format digital advertising network in northern cities such as Leeds, Sheffield, Doncaster and Newcastle.

Rachel Davies continues as managing director of Eye Airports and joins the CP Media management team.

Eye Airports will operate as a separate subsidiary of CP Media but will benefit from CP’s marketing and financial resources. The combined business will have a turnover of around £5m.

Davies said: “The next phase of our growth needs considerable investment in data, technology and ever more sophisticated marketing.

“Becoming part of CP Media with its expertise, energy, enthusiasm and experience will give the Eye team the tools to take our unique, targeted media opportunities to an even wider audience.”

The lucrative out-of-home advertising sector is expected, for the first time, to be a £1bn a year industry in the UK this year, with digital formats expected to account for 50 per cent of this, according to a recent report by Group M.

The market is dominated by three companies - JCDecaux, Clear Channel and Global Outdoor - but there are several niche players such as CP Media that specialise in specific key sectors of the market.

CP Media is headed by Mike Brennan, who has over 30 years of experience in outdoor sector working at companies such as JC Decaux and CBS.

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