Metropolis Changes Hands

The owners of Metropolis, a popular English language magazine among Tokyo’s foreign community, have sold their magazine for an undisclosed sum to Japan Inc. Holdings:

Starting life as Tokyo Classifieds when it was launched by Mark and Mary Devlin back in 1994, Metropolis magazine has grown to become Japan’s largest periodical both in terms of distribution volume and advertising revenue. Last week Metropolis was acquired by another publishing group.

Who was the buyer? Actually, none other than Japan Inc.Holdings (JIH), the owner of this publication and the Japan Inc. magazine.

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So does this mean that JIH will be changing Metropolis to Japanese? Not at all. Rather, with the judicious use of new media (web, mobile, and events) we hope to create some interesting extensions of the brand and content into the Japanese youth market. And if for no other reason, we believe that we’ll be noticed for the Personals, which are always entertaining.

Fans of Metropolis fear not, we don’t plan to mess with a winning formula.

We’ll have to wait and see if this actually means major changes for Metropolis…

[Hat tip to Joseph]