About Mumbrella

Mumbrella

Overview

Mumbrella is an Australian news website covering the media, marketing, advertising and public relations industries, published at mumbrella.com.au. Founded in December 2008 by journalist Tim Burrowes, it built its reputation on fast, sometimes irreverent reporting of industry news — agency wins and losses, media appointments, advertising campaigns, ratings and the business results of media companies — at a time when the sector was served mainly by weekly trade magazines. Its name derives from the phrase "media and marketing umbrella," reflecting its remit to cover everything under that umbrella.

Mumbrella operates as a digital news service supported by advertising, a paid membership tier called Mumbrella Pro, a free daily newsletter, podcasts, and a substantial events business that includes the Mumbrella360 conference and the Mumbrella Awards. Since January 2025 it has been owned by Mumbrella Media, a company majority owned by The Intermedia Group with founder Tim Burrowes as a shareholder and publisher, based at Intermedia's headquarters in Glebe, Sydney.

History

Tim Burrowes began his career as a newspaper journalist, became editor of UK advertising magazine MediaWeek, and later edited B&T magazine in Australia before creating Mumbrella. Launched on 9 December 2008, Mumbrella was initially designed primarily as a free weekly email newsletter, with the website secondary; the site quickly became the main focus as its rapid news reporting and critical commentary found an audience. By 2012 the website was reaching more than 200,000 unique readers per month and turning over A$1.5 million a year, according to a SmartCompany profile of Burrowes.

Events became central to the business. Mumbrella360, the industry's flagship conference, launched in 2011 and by 2019 attracted more than 2,000 attendees across three days; the Mumbrella Awards launched in 2013 and drew more than 1,000 attendees in 2019. Mumbrella expanded into Asia in 2013 with Mumbrella Asia, which closed in December 2019. Its then parent company, Focal Attractions, also bought the screen industry magazine Encore in late 2009 and relaunched it in 2011, before the title ceased publication at the end of 2013.

At the end of 2017, Mumbrella was sold to US-based events company Diversified Communications for a reported AU$8 million. Burrowes departed Diversified in 2020 and in 2021 founded the email-first trade title Unmade and published the book Media Unmade. In January 2025, Diversified sold Mumbrella to Mumbrella Media, a new company majority owned by The Intermedia Group with Burrowes as a shareholder; the deal completed on 28 January 2025, bringing Mumbrella and Unmade under the same roof, with Burrowes returning as publisher of both titles.

Content and Coverage

Mumbrella publishes daily news, analysis and opinion across the media and marketing industries: television, radio, publishing, out-of-home, advertising agencies, PR, marketing appointments and media business results. Its homepage is organised into News, FYI briefs, Analysis, Features and the Dr Mumbo diary column, and it covers the sharemarket performance of listed media companies through the Unmade Index. Regular columnists and contributors include marketing academic Mark Ritson, and its reporting is produced by a Sydney-based editorial team whose recent bylines include Eleanor Dickinson and Nathan Jolly.

Audio is a long-standing part of the offer. The Mumbrellacast podcast has run since 2009 — podcast directories list more than 440 episodes — and the stable now also includes The Unmakers interview podcast. The site's publishing in October 2026 illustrates its cadence: daily news stories, market updates on the Unmade Index, analysis pieces and podcast episodes appearing throughout the month, including coverage of the television upfronts season and an announcement that Mumbrella360 will return in 2027, with Four Pillars co-founder Matt Jones as its creative director, running alongside the Mumbrella Awards.

Mumbrella's events portfolio extends beyond Mumbrella360 and the Mumbrella Awards to the Publish Awards and Publish conference for the publishing industry, along with specialist summits and professional training. The events business has historically been the company's largest revenue stream: a 2024 profile of Burrowes by Simon Owens reported that at its peak the Mumbrella business generated around $7 million a year, the majority of it from events. That figure is the profile's estimate, presented here as such.

Audience and Reach

Mumbrella is read by people who work in, or sell to, Australia's media and marketing industries: agency staff, media owners, marketers, PR professionals and suppliers. Its 2012 audience figures — more than 200,000 unique readers a month — are the most recent audited-style numbers in the public record and are dated accordingly; the publisher does not currently publish audited traffic figures, and none are claimed here. Its LinkedIn company page, which lists 62,514 followers in October 2026, gives a more recent indication of the size of its professional following, though social followers are not a readership measure.

The title's influence within its niche is reflected in the industry roles of its people and products: founder Tim Burrowes became presenter of ABC Radio National's MediaLand program in 2025, and Mumbrella360 has been described in the business's own materials and trade coverage as Australia and New Zealand's leading media and marketing conference. Under Burrowes's original editorship the site was twice named Website of the Year at the Publishers Australia Awards, according to his published biography.

Digital Presence

Mumbrella's website carries its daily news, analysis, opinion, podcast episodes and event information, and was publishing current industry news throughout October 2026, with new stories appearing daily. A free daily newsletter delivers its headlines to subscribers, while the Mumbrella Pro membership provides access to premium analysis and the site's archive, parts of which are paywalled to non-members. The title maintains an active presence on LinkedIn and other social channels, where its stories are distributed and discussed.

The 2025 merger with Unmade brought the two titles onto a shared platform and team; an October 2025 Mumbrellacast episode discussed the project's progress in bringing Mumbrella and Unmade content together in one place. Mumbrella Asia's former site is no longer published, the Asian operation having closed in 2019.

Ownership and Organisation

Mumbrella is owned by Mumbrella Media, which took ownership of the brand from Diversified Communications in a deal announced on 20 January 2025 and completed on 28 January 2025. Mumbrella Media is majority owned by The Intermedia Group, a Sydney B2B publisher whose portfolio spans dozens of digital mastheads, events and print magazines, with Tim Burrowes holding a stake as a shareholder. Burrowes is publisher of both Mumbrella and Unmade, and the combined business is based at The Intermedia Group's headquarters in Glebe, Sydney.

The ownership history runs from Burrowes's own company, Focal Attractions, which founded and first published Mumbrella, through the 2017 sale to Diversified Communications — reported at AU$8 million by The Australian — to the 2025 return under Mumbrella Media. Diversified's CEO in Australia, David Longman, said at the time of the 2025 sale that Intermedia had approached Diversified with a vision for Mumbrella's future and that Diversified recognised it as the ideal time to transition ownership.

Contact and Availability

Mumbrella is available online at mumbrella.com.au, with news, analysis and podcasts free to read or listen to, and premium content and the full archive available to Mumbrella Pro members. Its free daily newsletter is offered on the site, and information about its conferences, awards and training events is published in its events sections. The business is based in Glebe, Sydney. In keeping with this directory's policy, the structured business email field for this listing is left empty.