Since Keesing Media Group acquired Megastar France in 2012 to start a new business in Spain, the team and Keesing’s presence has significantly grown. Today, they’re celebrating their latest success, thanks to deals with local Spanish TV media networks.
Initially, the small team was made up of four Editors in France and a Sales Manager in Spain. “When Keesing France bought Megastar, it had a small export business in Spain and Germany. I joined Keesing in 2012 to create business development deals and sales and work with the editorial team in France and Belgium,” says David Wakefield, Head of Spain. Now they have their own editorial team, including two Portuguese Editors, and one in Mexico, along with an in-house design team as well as circulation, administration and IT colleagues.
Today, Keesing Spain SL is a well-known business in the country with 30 employees. Their most popular brands are Megastar, a market leader in Spain, Portugal and Mexico; and Quiz, a 50-year-old leading brand acquired in 2021.
Since early 2024, the team celebrated a new deal with their network partner Mediaset with the launch of the daily show’s official magazine for Reacción en Cadena (Chain Reaction). “And we recently signed a deal with Spanish TV channel Telecinco,” adds David. “Every day, before prime time, our new magazine is promoted during the live shows.
Cornering the TV market
While the latest deals are significant, since 2014 Keesing Spain already promoted two other magazines on the country’s competing two TV channels: Telecinco and Antena3.
One of the magazines is called Telecinco Pasatiempos. And the other is PasaPalabra (The Alpahabet Game). Both Reacción en Cadena and Pasapalabra have between two and three million combined viewers each day,” says David.
Spanish team keeps growing
In 2023, Editor Paula Queraltó joined Keesing Spain to manage and grow their editorial team. This was during an especially busy time, with the Pleyades integration process and the migration of Madrid. Today, Paula manages 18 people in Editorial and Design teams for Spain, Portugal and Mexico.
Paula´s first sole project has been publishing the official magazine of Reacción en Cadena with Mediaset. “The most difficult part of the project is to be able to combine the elements of a daily TV show into a magazine format,” says Paula.
What is Chain Reaction?
Known as Reacción en cadena, the TV game show is a Spanish version of the US version, called Chain Reaction. It was released in 1980 and distributed by NBC. In Europe, the Italian show, Reazione a cattena has been a success since 2007. In the popular game, two teams compete to solve different chains of words and win the daily prize, which can be up to €150,000.
“The Mozos de Arousa are three unbeatable contestants who have been on the show for more than a year and have achieved a record 1.5 Million euros in winnings together,” says Paula. “As part of our deal with Mediaset, we create a customized monthly 48-page puzzle magazine, which has a 40,000 monthly print run. And the TV publisher supplies us with promotional TV ads, content and images. During each TV show, the participants each receive a magazine with a variety of puzzles they can enjoy playing at home.”
Watch the video to see part of Chain Reaction:
What’s next for Spain?
Looking ahead, the team will keep up their momentum across channels. Paula expects to keep developing editorial content both in digital and print areas. “We’re currently working on a new Olympics Quiz edition, plus two summer specials. One is under the Telecinco brand and the other combines the top 50 years of Quiz plus several ideas on puzzle books. We also recently launched a puzzle platform for Hola´s e-readers, a major magazine in Spain, and publisher of Hello magazine.
