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TWST: Can we begin with a very brief historical sketch and introduction to The Future Network (FNET.L)?

Greg Ingham: The Future Network is an international special interest magazine publisher, primarily focused on technology magazines and also a variety of other special interest magazines. Our main business is in the UK, which is approximately 60% of our business, approximately 20% is in the US, and the remaining 20% is divided between France and Italy. It began as a private business in 1985 in the UK and expanded into the US in the early 90's. Subsequently part of it was sold to Pearson in the UK, and then we brought it all together again at flotation in June 1999. Our main areas of interest are computer games magazines, where we are the worldwide market leader; computing and technology titles and a number of other special interest magazines such as music making and mountain biking in the UK. A specific feature of Future is that we have a strong licensing capability to license a lot of our content to third party publishers in a variety of countries worldwide. We believe in a narrow-but-deep publishing philosophy which means we establish a deep connection with our readers, providing what we believe to be high quality content, for which we can charge a premium price. And it gives us a great lock in for advertisers. From a competitive point of view as well you have the opportunity for a very clear business model, which is protectable and indeed scalable.

TWST: How are you finding market conditions as we speak?

Greg Ingham: We just put out a trading update saying we're comfortable that we're going to exceed the market expectations, and that's been quite well received by the market.

TWST: What's driven that performance?

Greg Ingham: A lot of it has to do with our business getting back to running itself more straightforwardly rather than having to sort out all the problems that we had last year. Then within that, the games market is having a very strong time of it, particularly inside the US where fourth quarter advertising has been strong.

TWST: What's a quick synopsis of the overall game plan going forward over the next 12-24 months?

Greg Ingham: The fundamentals are the same. First it's to make sure that we maximize our position in the games market. Though there are no guarantees of success, we've got good expertise. And to give an example, games revenues in the first half of 2002 are up 46% for us as a business, which is pretty good. Then, to continue developing our UK business further, which has been growing at the top and bottom line virtually every year since inception. It has achieved margins in the high teens, and we believe that’s the mid-term aim that can be obtained again. Part of the UK game plan is to continue moving out of our core areas into other special interest areas, perhaps some slightly larger scale areas as well. We also need to bring our three smaller businesses into profitability – US, France and Italy. And that matters to us to be able to show that the business model works fully there, using in some cases content and thinking from the UK. Also, we want to develop the licensing activities, there’s a lot of the world still to go for us. And then to get back into the cycle of launching. In 2001, we launched two magazines and by the end of 2002 we will have launched 13 magazines. This year they're virtually all technology titles, either computing or games related. There will be more of those next year, but then some other defined interest areas as well.