REV Media acquires Tantannews to reach MY Chinese speaking online community

REV Media Group, digital publisher, has acquired the intellectual property (IP) assets of popular Chinese social news portal, Tantannews, from Monster Scape, to strengthen its reach among the Chinese speaking online community. REV Media Group is a subsidiary of the media group, Media Prima . Being the newest addition to REV Media Group, Tantannews' digital presence will contribute to the group’s digital business and its media solutions strategy for advertisers.

Launched in 2013, Tantannews is a Chinese social news and content portal that primarily focuses on the latest news and trendiest stories on entertainment, travel, fashion, and lifestyle. The addition of Tantannews will accelerate the growth of REV Media Group’s Chinese Network which includes popular brands across multiple media platforms including, ViralCham, Rojaklah, 8TV, and 8FM.

Media Prima reaches over 98% of the Malaysian population and audiences across all ages and market segments through its multiple media platforms and brands. Strengthening the group’s Chinese audience reach through REV Media Group’s acquisition of Tantannews complements Media Prima’s strategy.

Samuel Wee, chief executive officer of REV Media Group, said, “This is an exciting and strategic acquisition for REV Media Group as there is a growing demand for Chinese-language content from our audiences, particularly from those inclined to reading news content. The acquisition of Tantannews solidifies our position as the leading digital publisher across all market groups in Malaysia. We will continue to look out for more acquisitions and partnerships to drive growth for REV Media Group.”

Sean Teoh, founder of Tantannews, said, “We are happy to see Tantannews continue to grow under the leadership of Wee and the team from REV Media Group. We found Tantannews 10 years ago from a Facebook page to allow users to discuss news on social media. At its peak, the site had more than seven million users and 20 million page views per month.”

“Moving forward, my team and I at Monster Scape have decided to focus more on technology by investing resources in the development of our own content management system that can be used to develop different types of content, as well as a content marketplace where more than 6,000 part-time mobile journalists create content on a part-time basis. The goal is to create an army of content creators across the region in video, visual, and text formats who contribute news and community information,” Teoh added.

He added that the acquisition will allow his team to focus on MOpress and the technology platform.

The marketing division will be renamed Data & Co to focus on data marketing, an omni-data marketing platform and tools to help brands and marketers turn their users into digital assets of choice.

By collecting first-hand user data, brands can take advantage of real-time information in an ecosystem to reach audiences around the world. This means that businesses, customers and partners can build real community-based relationships. This agency model offers a comprehensive service for early stage businesses, growth and expansion stage businesses, that need to implement their digital strategy.

Data & Co is currently serving more than a hundred companies and is expanding its services to be more data-driven. The business is seeing growth in Malaysian businesses selling their products and services overseas.

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