SWNS Media Group acquires Creatorville, appoints founder Sam Barcroft as group CEO

UK-based news and factual content provider SWNS Media Group has appointed media entrepreneur Sam Barcroft as group CEO after acquiring his consultancy firm Creatorville.

Sam Barcroft

The acquisition, financial details of which were not disclosed, also sees Barcroft become a shareholder in SWNS Media Group.

The company said the leadership change and strategic acquisition will drive its expansion into the creator economy by combining its journalism with Creatorville’s expertise in social video, digital publishing and audience-first content production.

Barcroft is best known for founding Barcroft Studios and growing it into a digital content business that was sold to Future Publishing in 2019 for US$30m.

He left the company in 2020 and went on to set up Creatorville, which has advised media organisations including Channel 4, Hearst Networks and News UK on digital video strategy and IP development.

Earlier this year Barcroft sparked debate with a viral LinkedIn post declaring the death of the TV commissioning model and urging producers to launch IP themselves on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube and then sell the ideas to premium streamers.

SWNS Media Group consists of SWNS, which creates and distributes news and lifestyle content to the world’s leading media outlets via a proprietary newswire platform; content agency 72Point; and market research firm OnePoll.

Creatorville will become a new division within the group and will create new video formats and work with new talent.

Current CEO Paul Walters will become non-executive chair at SWNS Media Group and co-founder Andrew Young will become a non-executive director.

Martin Winter will remain as SWNS managing director and Chris Pharo will remain as CEO of 72Point.

Barcroft said: “SWNS Media Group has always been an innovative and entrepreneurial business. By bringing Creatorville into the group, we’re combining SWNS’s journalistic depth and 72Point’s first class creativity and broad spectrum of brand and agency clients with additional social-first firepower. Together, we’ll help clients connect with fast-changing audiences through impactful storytelling.”

Walters added: “Our shared long-term vision is to transform our business into the UK’s most exciting and effective media group. By combining our proven expertise in news generation and creative communications with Sam’s leadership in building communities around outstanding content, we will build our business on our shared journalistic foundations, amplified by the creativity, agility, and reach of a digital-native production studio.”