Matt Bielby
Encyclopedia
Blackfish Publishing
Blackfish Publishing is a magazine publishing company based in Bath, UK. Its first title is Death Ray, a science fiction and fantasy title.- History :...
, a specialist magazine and internet publishing company based in Bath, UK. He is best known as a magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, launching many successful titles in assorted markets during the 1990s, mostly on the subjects of computer and video games, and film and television. These include Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
, SFX
SFX magazine
SFX is a British magazine covering the topics of science fiction and fantasy.-Description:SFX magazine is published every four weeks by Future Publishing and was founded in 1995. The magazine covers topics in the genres of popular science fiction, fantasy and horror, within the media of films,...
, and PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
.
Life and Career
Bielby was born in HuddersfieldHuddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, in 1965, and spent most of his early life in Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
, West Yorks, where he attended Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School is a co-educational, independent school in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire. Headmaster, Stephen Davidson is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference . The school was founded in 1548 and granted its Charter by King Charles II in 1662...
. Developing an interest in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, and magazines in particular, he was film editor of the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
student newspaper, Impact, before getting a job at Emap
EMAP
Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...
in London in February 1988, as staff writer on Computer and Video Games
Computer and video games
A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but following popularization of the term "video game", it now implies any type of...
magazine. By the end of 1988 he was deputy editor of Your Sinclair
Your Sinclair
Your Sinclair or YS as it was commonly abbreviated, was a British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum.-History:...
magazine at Dennis Publishing
Dennis Publishing
Dennis Publishing Ltd. is an independent publisher. It was founded in 1974.As of April 2010 the company publishes 31 magazine or online titles, predominately in the UK....
, also in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and became editor in early 1989.
In 1990 Bielby moved to Bath, when Your Sinclair was bought by Bath-based Future Publishing
Future Publishing
Future plc is a media company; in 2006, it was the sixth-largest in the United Kingdom. It publishes more than 150 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography. Future is the official magazine company of all three major games console manufacturers...
, and there he became an important part of Future's growth during the 1990s. There, Bielby launched the computer games magazine Amiga Power
Amiga Power
Amiga Power was a monthly magazine about Amiga computer games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996....
(1991), the Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
video games magazine Super Play
Super Play
Super Play was a UK based Super Nintendo Entertainment System magazine which ran from November 1992 to September 1996.Super Play was notable for a number of reasons. Firstly, it covered in great detail the console role-playing game genre...
(1992), the computer games magazine PC Gamer (1993), the internet magazine .net
.net (magazine)
.net is a monthly Internet magazine published in the UK by Future Publishing. Founded in 1994, .net magazine is published every four weeks . The magazine is aimed at professional and amateur web designers, and a significant proportion of its readers are full-time web developers. The front cover...
(1994), the SF and fantasy magazine SFX (1995), the movie magazine Total Film (1996), the computer and video game magazine Arcade (1998), and the video game magazine Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine (2000). Most of these titles became the best sellers in their particular markets, with the exception of Total Film, which established itself as the No.2 title in its market, after Emap's Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
.
In addition, Bielby spent six months in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, launching the US edition of PC Gamer (1994), and some time in Munich, Germany in the late 1990s, helping set up Future's German subsidiary. Further, as Group Senior Editor at the company, he oversaw the launches and relaunches of many other magazines, while in a short stint as an Assistant Publisher he worked on titles such as PC Plus
PC Plus
PC Plus is a Computer magazine published monthly since 1986 in the UK by Future Publishing. The magazine is aimed at intermediate to advanced PC users, computer professionals and enthusiasts. The magazine is specifically for users of PCs and related technologies, so features articles are...
and PC Answers
PC Answers
PC Answers was a computer magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing.It was notable for its focus on the technical side of computing. It ran several series of articles on overclocking, a "Danger! Don't Try This At Home!" section which reviewed hardware projects such as the Stone...
.
Since leaving Future in 2001, Bielby worked as a freelance journalist at assorted companies, including Emap, Future, and Highbury House, usually in the development of new projects. One of these went on to become Zoo
Zoo Weekly
Zoo is a weekly lads' magazine published in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 29 January 2004, as the second weekly men's magazine in the UK after the similar and rival magazine Nuts)...
(2004), EMAP's weekly men's magazine.
In 2006, Bielby launched his own publishing company, Blackfish Publishing
Blackfish Publishing
Blackfish Publishing is a magazine publishing company based in Bath, UK. Its first title is Death Ray, a science fiction and fantasy title.- History :...
, which currently publishes the magazines Death Ray and Filmstar
Filmstar
"Filmstar" is the fifth and final single from the album Coming Up by Suede, released on August 11, 1997, on Nude Records. The single hit the top 10, peaking at number nine, thus making all five singles released from the album top ten hits. The live songs on CD2 are performed with Neil Tennant...
. Death Ray is a science fiction and fantasy title, created as a rival to Future Publishing's market-leading SFX. Bielby repeatedly talks positively about SFX
SFX magazine
SFX is a British magazine covering the topics of science fiction and fantasy.-Description:SFX magazine is published every four weeks by Future Publishing and was founded in 1995. The magazine covers topics in the genres of popular science fiction, fantasy and horror, within the media of films,...
throughout the first issue of Death Ray.