Media Analytics

Now information about anything anyone might possibly want to know about water is gathered here — and then exported all over the world.

For I was chatting to Chris Gasson in that wonderful old edifice, across the street from Oxford station, called the Jam Factory — where his company, Media Analytics, now occupies the top floor.

Media Analytics publishes newsletters, reports and magazines, including Global Water Intelligence.

Mr Gasson founded the firm, which has a £3.7m turnover, in 2002. Now 33 staff work in Oxford, with five more in Manilla; two in Beijing; five in Austin, Texas; and one each in Brisbane and Singapore.

This year the company won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the international trade category.

Between them there is not a lot they do not know about water — and even a glance at their publications guide reveals tantalising titbits of information about this essential element we all take so much for granted.

For instance, did you know the oil industry produces two and a half times as much water as it does oil, and that by 2025 it will be producing five times as much?

But Mr Gasson’s journey to success was not always easy, and he nearly sank without trace during his first year in business.

He said: “I did not know a thing about water when I started out. I had £60,000 to invest and lost it all in the first year.”

A graduate of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Mr Gasson trained as a journalist and started his career working for the Local Government Chronicle and then The Bookseller, before moving into finance and taking a job in mergers and acquisitions — which meant brokering deals in the publishing business.

He said: “We lived in Oxford. My wife worked at Oxford University Press and I commuted to London. I got interested in the finance of these things and also wanted to stop commuting — so I bought a water newsletter for £17,000.”

In those days the only staff were Mr Gasson, then aged 35, working in his attic in Cripley Road, the editor working in another attic and a sales person working in her kitchen.

And all they were achieving between them was the evaporation of Mr Gasson’s hard earned £60,000 bonus from his mergers and acquisitions activities.

He reminisced: “We had 162 subscriptions and sinking.”

The trouble was that although the UK water industry looked as though it would always be a safe bet, following privatisation in 1989 the companies went off to conquer the world, offering expertise everywhere Mr Gasson arrived on the scene at exactly the wrong time: just after the 1998 currency crisis when they were having to cut back on generosity.

Mr Gasson said: “I was on the point of giving up when we discovered desalination.”

He invested £6,000 in a desalination report which netted £100,000. The corner was turned and the business has been growing ever since.

Now about 70 per cent of revenue comes from publications, with everything produced in hard copy also going online.

On the bookshelves in the office in which we chatted were interesting-looking coffee pots of middle eastern design. Following my gaze Mr Gasson explained that they were gifts from the Saudi Arabian water minister.

Desalination is huge business in Saudi Arabia where water costs about £4.25 a cubic metre to produce but is sold at about 2p.

“It is a very distorted market in Saudi,” said Mr Gasson. He then explained how a power plant in Jeddah, used to desalinate sea water, is polluting both the beautiful old city and the coral off the coast.

But how, I wondered, could he have begun producing expert publications on the international water, re-use and desalination markets for developers, technology and policy makers, investors, financiers and governments, when, by his own admission, he knew nothing about water, to start with at any rate.

He said: “A good journalist knows how to ask the right questions.”

And with the world population growing and water becoming increasingly scarce there is no shortage of people wanting to learn all about it.

Now, of course, he employs many experts here in Oxford, many of them having taken the water masters’ degree course at Oxford University.

But to follow that line about the oil industry producing all that water a little further. Treating that water is a tremendous growth market according to a primary research report the company published earlier this year called Produced Water Market.

It presents the opportunity to turn a hazardous waste product into a valuable asset.

Little wonder there are plenty of people out there willing to pay £2,000 each to get their hands on that report.

After all, as a millionaire once said: “If you want to make money you must produce something everyone needs, is cheap and does not last.” Water fits the bill perfectly.

Name: Media Analytics Owner: Christopher Gasson Established: 2002 Number of staff: 48 Annual turnover: £3.7m

Contact: 01865 204208 Web: www.globalwaterintelligence.com