Abbey Home Media is a British home media distributor that releases content aimed at children. It was founded on 4 March 2002, as the successor company to Abbey Home Entertainment, which was acquired by the Just Group in 2000. The company has released content coming from the likes of CBBC, CITV, CBeebies, LittleBe, Pop, Tiny Pop and Milkshake!. Abbey Home Media also are a producer of their own franchises, which includes the likes of Bump the Elephant, Fun Song Factory, Wide-Eye and Baby Bright.
History and predecessors
Abbey Home Entertainment
The predecessor company of Abbey Home Media was Abbey Home Entertainment Group Limited Abbey Home Entertainment was founded in 1989 by Ian and Anne Miles. AHE would acquire the Tempo Video brand name from WM Collins Video in 1990 and also later introduced other brand names:
Tempo Kids Club was used for re-releases of older Tempo Video releases which were previously distributed by their old owners MSD Video and Collins Video.
Tempo Pre-School was used for releases aimed at very young children. The success of the releases released under the label made Abbey Home Entertainment the only video distributor whose releases were recommended and approved by the Pre-School Learning Alliance. The label remained after the Just Entertainment buyout and was used into the Abbey Home Media era, before it was retired in favour of the regular Abbey Home Media brand in the mid 2000s.
Abbey Fitness was used for fitness releases.
Abbey Freetime was used for documentary releases.
Abbey Music was used for Music and Concert releases.
A subsidiary called Abbey Broadcast Communications was also founded during this time, which produced original content for AHE on both VHS and Audio Cassette. This division has been dormant since the early 2000s. In 1995, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment acquired a 75% majority stake in the company. In July 1998, the company was in talks to sell the stake back to Ian and Anne Miles and letting AHE trade independently again. In exchange, PolyGram would acquire the rights to distribute all future Fun Song Factory Videos afterward. In early 2000, Abbey Home Entertainment was acquired by Just Group PLC. Abbey's 'Tempo Pre-school' label was retained for pre-school products, while 'at school' video and audio products were released under the Just Entertainment label. Abbey itself retained its special focus on the 'pre-school' and 'at school' age groups.
Just Group PLC
Just Group PLC was a media company founded in the mid 1990s best-known for producing Butt-Ugly Martians. The company also owned 3 divisions - Just Entertainment, Just Licensing and Just Publishing, the latter of which had held a partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to release comic books based on their properties. The company was expanded after they purchased Abbey Home Entertainment in 2000. Just Group's shares were suspended in November 2001 after the company failed to file accounts for the year to April 2001. The company then filed for administration on 9 January 2002 and the shares were delisted from Aim. They eventually exited administration by the end of the year and was renamed to Newscreen Media Group PLC. The company filed for administration for the second time in 2004, and its assets were shared between them and another company called Think Entertainment PLC.
Tempo Video
Another predecessor of Abbey Home Media was Tempo Video, which was originally launched by video distributor MSD Video in 1987 as a kids-focused video label. After 2 years MSD transitioned the distribution of Tempo to Collins Video and then transitioned the label off to Abbey Home Entertainment within 1990, a year after the company was founded. Tempo Video was the mainstream video label for Abbey Home Entertainment and continued to be used until 2000, when the label was discontinued by AHE's new owner Just Group. The Tempo label was also used within Abbey-distributed audio cassettes, under labels like Tempo Audio, Tempo Twins, Tempo Reed and Tempo Children's Classics.
After Just Group filed for administration in 2002, Ian Miles formed a new company under the Abbey name called Abbey Home Media on 4 March 2002, re-acquiring former assets once owned by AHE. Abbey Home Media retained the Tempo Pre-School brand that Just Group kept during their ownership of the Abbey brands and would later introduce the Tempo and Tempo TV Classics brands. As of 2019, all of the releases are released under the regular Abbey Home Media brand name.
