Penske Media Corporation

What is Penske Media Corporation?

PMC is a private American media, publishing, and live events company headquartered in Los Angeles. It owns more than 20 brands including Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, SHE Media, and Dick Clark Productions.

Who owns Penske Media?

Founder Jay Penske owns approximately 60 percent and serves as chairman and CEO. Minority stakes are held by investment partners including Eldridge Industries through a joint venture.

Is Penske Media publicly traded?

No. PMC is a private company and does not trade on any stock exchange.

When was Penske Media founded?

Jay Penske founded the company in 2003 as Velocity Services. It was renamed Mail.com Media Corporation in 2007 and took the Penske Media name in 2012 after acquiring Variety.

Where is Penske Media headquartered?

PMC is headquartered at 11355 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, with major offices in New York.

Does PMC own SHE Media?

Yes. PMC acquired SheKnows Media in March 2018 for approximately $40 million; the unit rebranded as SHE Media in November 2018 under CEO Samantha Skey.

Jay Penske founded the company in 2003 as Velocity Services, Inc., an affinity marketing and internet services business. It acquired the Mail.com domain and operated as Mail.com Media Corporation from 2007, accumulating digital entertainment properties including Hollywood Life and Movieline, backed by a $35 million Quadrangle Capital Partners growth round in 2008.

The inflection came in 2012 when PMC acquired Variety, the century-old entertainment trade publication, for roughly $25 million, and renamed the company Penske Media Corporation. Under Penske, Variety returned to profitability and established the pattern PMC would repeat: buying heritage media brands at distressed prices and rebuilding them on shared digital infrastructure.

The acquisition run accelerated through the 2010s and 2020s. PMC bought Deadline Hollywood (2009, pre-Variety), Fairchild Fashion Media including WWD (2014), a majority of Rolling Stone (2017, completed 2020), and SheKnows Media (2018, rebranded SHE Media). It formed Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture with Eldridge Industries, which consolidated The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and Vibe into the fold in 2020, and acquired Dick Clark Productions, producer of the Golden Globes, American Music Awards, and Billboard Music Awards.

The 2020s added data business Luminate (the Billboard charts and entertainment analytics operation), events properties SXSW and Life is Beautiful, Artforum, and a major stake in Vox Media, of which PMC is now the largest shareholder. In 2023 the company consolidated its Los Angeles offices at 11355 West Olympic Boulevard. In August 2025 it sold Boy Genius Report and TVLine to Static Media, part of ongoing portfolio management.

PMC's social footprint is editorial and cultural: its publications set standards in entertainment, fashion, and music journalism, and its brands carry the associated responsibilities around labor practices, editorial independence, and content quality. As a private company its ESG disclosure is limited relative to listed peers.

PMC's brands accumulate the recognition: its publications regularly win journalism awards, and its live events include the Golden Globes and Billboard Music Awards. The company itself has been twice named among the top 100 private companies in the US, and Jay Penske appears annually on the LA500 list of influential Los Angeles business leaders.

PMC's record carries the ordinary controversies of a large media employer: periodic newsroom labor negotiations, unionization drives at individual titles, and editorial scrutiny attached to high-profile coverage decisions. Its 2023 move of The Hollywood Reporter's ownership into the Eldridge joint venture drew industry attention for the added complexity it layered onto an already complicated structure.