Chloe Miller told Printweek she was approached about a potential sale by Blackwell’s team of directors the day they announced the company’s closure to employees.
She had been running the company’s publishing arm for nearly a year – but the idea still came as a shock to Miller, who has worked within publishing companies over her 12 years in the sector.
“It was a scary prospect,” she said.
“I’ve always had the security of working for a company, so to go out on my own was intimidating.”
Speaking to Scott Nicholson, LiveLocal’s designer, the pair realised that they might be able to take on the business together.
“We had a conversation and realised that it would actually work really well,” she explained.
“He’ll start bringing in his design work into the business, we have the LiveLocal magazines, and then [the ideas] spiralled out into us making it into a wider media business, rather than just publications.”
Forming MediaFlame Limited on 17 March, therefore, the pair bought out the publishing arm of Blackwell Print, and have been busy building the foundations of a media company that will offer advertising buying across the Norfolk and Suffolk coast in print and radio, creative services, and marketing across print and digital media too.
LiveLocal’s latest print run began distribution on 28 April. Some 76,000 copies of the glossy 44-pager were distributed to homes across the four editions’ postcodes – NR30–33 – and 8,000 copies went to distribution hubs like supermarkets. Buxton Print printed the work, as the firm had a good existing relationship with the Blackwell team, and had printed several issues in the past.
“I think a big part of what we wanted to do is the strengths that we both have,” Miller said.
“I’ve been in publishing for 12 years, and Scott’s been a designer for more years than I can tell. Taking those sort of skills and actually creating a one-stop-shop for local businesses is the idea, so someone could come to us and say: ‘I need a brand package, a website and local advertising’. We aim to cover pretty much everything a customer may need, from business cards through to a full magazine, through to all of their digital branding.
“The aim is to be a media agency with some added perks, but at a local cost point. We’ll say to local customers: ‘Instead of spending X amount on one of these big local agencies, work with us and we’ll get you where to you need to go.”
Matching up with the pair’s plans, they launch a website for LiveLocal’s four geographies in early May, and aim to continue growing the physical magazine by a leaf every monthly edition.
“This next edition, we’re looking at 48pp, then 52pp. It’s been growing steadily over the last six months or so. When I started with Blackwell, that was issue seven, around 24 pages,” Miller said.
The pair’s plans even extend to potentially putting on events, as part of a five-year plan for growth. For Miller and Nicholson both, the excitement has been in rescuing and helping the brand find its potential.
“I was really happy to be able to [take on the business],” she explained.
“I’d been working on these publications for nearly a year, and it just seemed such a shame to let all of that work go to waste, or end up with a larger company that might not look after it as well as we would. Our main goal is to support the community and local businesses as much as we can.”
