Chris Anderson started Future Publishing from his house in Somerset with a bank loan and one magazine, and six years later the company was claiming to sell more computer magazines than any other publisher in Britain. Before that, in the space of about a year, he had edited Personal Computer Games until it closed and put together the first issues of ZZAP!64 for a rival publisher. Nine years after the first issue of Amstrad Action, he sold Future Publishing to the media group Pearson and moved to the United States. He later bought the TED conference.
Personal Computer Games
Personal Computer Games was a multi-format games magazine published in London by VNU Business Publications. Its first issue, dated Summer 1983, was edited by Deirdre Boyd. By February 1984 the masthead named Chris Anderson as editor, with Steve Cooke and Peter Connor as staff writers. Bob Wade joined them later that year. In October 1984 the magazine introduced its reviewing panel, including “PCG’s long-suffering editor, aged 27 and owner of a Spectrum and Commodore 64. Too busy editing the mag to spend as much time as he’d like at the keyboard.”
He did the job from Somerset. When ZZAP!64 later told the story, it said he “adored working on PCG, except it meant commuting to London. From Somerset.”
ZZAP!64
In late 1984 Newsfield, whose CRASH was selling “like hot cakes” to Spectrum owners, advertised for an editor for a Commodore 64 magazine. Anderson applied. By ZZAP!64’s own account the people at CRASH were “amused to receive his application”, since he had started “a slanging match with Crash” earlier that year with a gossip item in PCG. “As a punishment they ordered him to start work immediately.”
VNU then announced that PCG’s “financial prospects for 1985 were said to be poor” and closed it. Anderson brought reviewer Bob Wade and the adventure writer Steve Cooke, PCG’s “White Wizard”, with him. CRASH announced the new team in March 1985: “Heading up the editorial team is Chris Anderson who was editor of PCG until he heard about ZZAP! 64.” ZZAP!64 issue 1, dated May 1985, was written at 1 Church Terrace, Yeovil, “a draughty, tumble-down, upstairs hideaway in an anonymous Somerset town”. Its masthead gave everyone a joke title, and Anderson’s was “Slavedriver”.
It was a short stay. Gary Penn, who joined ZZAP!64 as a trainee staff writer in February 1985, later wrote that he worked for Anderson “until he left three months later to start Future Publishing”.
Future Publishing
Amstrad Action issue 1, dated October 1985, was published by Future Publishing from Somerton, Somerset, edited by Peter Connor, another PCG veteran. Anderson appeared on the masthead from issue 2 and as publisher by April 1986. In 1995 Edge, one of his company’s own magazines, described the start: Future “was started in 1985 by a man called Chris Anderson in his house with a £15,000 bank loan”. His TED biography gives the loan as $25,000.
Future’s list grew to include ACE, ST/Amiga Format, Amiga Format, ST Format, Amiga Power, Commodore Format, Your Sinclair and Edge. The mastheads track Anderson’s changing role: publisher of ST/Amiga Format in 1988, managing director on Amiga Power from 1991 to 1993 and on Edge in 1993, then chairman and, from March 1994, chief executive.
Pearson and the United States
In January 1995 Edge reported that Future, “Nine years and 34 magazines later”, had been sold to the New Entertainment division of Pearson for £52.5 million. (Later accounts, including Wikipedia, give £52.7 million.) Edge said Anderson had “made a provision for every Future employee to receive shares in the company” and, with “over £30 million in his personal fortune”, had “set his sights on the US”, where he was working on GP Publications, publisher of Game Players and American editions of PC Gamer and CD-ROM Today.
His American company became Imagine. In February 1996 Edge explained to a reader that its American sister magazine, Next Generation, was published in San Francisco by Imagine Publishing, “a company owned by Future Publishing founder Chris Anderson”. By October 1998 the masthead of Maximum PC named Imagine Media Inc, with Chris Anderson as CEO. His TED biography says Imagine Media published Business 2.0 and created the games website IGN.
He came back to Future too. Wikipedia records that he bought the company back from Pearson in 1998, and in December 1998 Future’s masthead in Arcade named him as non-executive chairman. The company floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1999 as The Future Network, and its mastheads in 2000 still list him as chairman.
TED
According to his TED biography, Anderson set up a non-profit organisation, the Sapling Foundation, which acquired the TED conference in 2001. He took over as its curator in 2002 and is now its chairman.
Sources
- Personal Computer Games (VNU Business Publications, London): issue 1, Summer 1983 (Deirdre Boyd, editor); issue 3, February 1984 (Chris Anderson, editor; Steve Cooke and Peter Connor, staff writers); issue 9, August 1984 (Bob Wade among the staff writers); issue 11, October 1984 (the reviewers’ panel); issue 15, February 1985 (Anderson still editor).
- ZZAP!64 issue 1, May 1985, pp. 3, 7: masthead (“Slavedriver”), the Yeovil address and “How Zzap was born” (the advertisement, the commute, the slanging match, PCG’s closure, Wade and the White Wizard).
- CRASH issue 14, March 1985: “Heading up the editorial team is Chris Anderson who was editor of PCG until he heard about ZZAP! 64.”
- Amiga Power issue 33, January 1994: Gary Penn’s career profile (worked for Anderson at ZZAP!64 “until he left three months later to start Future Publishing”).
- Amstrad Action issue 1, October 1985 (Future Publishing, Somerton; Peter Connor, editor); issue 2, November 1985, and issue 7, April 1986 (Anderson on the masthead, then as publisher).
- ST/Amiga Format issue 1, July 1988: masthead (Chris Anderson, publisher). Amiga Power issue 0, May 1991, and issues 20, December 1992, to 32, December 1993: masthead (managing director). Edge issue 1, October 1993 (managing director), issue 4, January 1994 (chairman), issues 6, March 1994, to 15, December 1994 (chief executive).
- Edge issue 16, January 1995: news item on the sale to Pearson New Entertainment (the £15,000 loan, £52.5 million, the employee shares, GP Publications).
- Edge issue 29, February 1996: letters page (Next Generation and Imagine Publishing).
- Maximum PC, October 1998: masthead (Imagine Media Inc; Chris Anderson, CEO).
- Arcade issue 1, December 1998: Future Publishing masthead (non-executive chairman). Edge issue 90, November 2000, and DC-UK issue 16, December 2000: The Future Network masthead (chairman).
- Amiga Format issue 25, August 1991: Future Publishing house advertisement (“a company founded just six years ago, but which now sells more computer magazines than any other publisher in Britain”).
- TED, “Chris Anderson” speaker biography (web, secondary): the $25,000 loan, Imagine Media, Business 2.0 and IGN, the Sapling Foundation’s acquisition of TED in 2001, curator from 2002. https://www.ted.com/speakers/chris_anderson_ted
- Wikipedia, “Chris Anderson (entrepreneur)” (web, secondary): born 1957 in Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Anderson_(entrepreneur)
- Wikipedia, “Future plc” (web, secondary): the Pearson sale at £52.7 million, the buy-back in 1998 and the flotation in 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc