RamsayMedia is an organisation with seven decades of experience publishing niche-market magazines. It began in 1933 when Samuel Alexander Grant Ramsay – journalist, gold-digger, mounted policeman, storekeeper and farmer – founded The Buyer (Pty) Ltd in order to publish The Buyer trade magazine for the textile and fashion industry. Further titles were launched in Rhodesia and Cape Town and, under the leadership of Samuel's son, Norton, the company continued to expand.

In anticipation of a post-war business revival, Norton invited AG Parker, head of a Manchester advertising agency that had been representing The Buyer in England, to join the company. In 1945 Ramsay, Son & Parker, the name an amalgam of the three senior executives, was formed.

The company launched a series of trade publications such as the Furnishing Trades Journal, Footwear Trades Journal and Food Trades Journal and acquired the SA Exporter and the SA Hotel Review. Milady, a glossy high-quality women's magazine covering fashion, social events and home-keeping, was developed as an offshoot of The Buyer.

In the early 1950s, rigid import controls meant the loss of a great deal of advertising from overseas advertisers, resulting in the closure first of Milady and then the disposal of Ramsay, Son & Parker's trade journals. Only The Buyer and Hotel Review (acquired in 1950), which became Hotelier & Caterer and subsequently Hotel & Restaurant, survived from those early days.

To replace them, CAR magazine was launched in 1957, the first of the current stable of consumer titles. To this flagship publication were added Getaway, Wine, Compleat Golfer, Popular Mechanics, WIEL and Mooiloop (launched as Wegbreek), the latter two the casualties of an economic downturn that saw the closure of Mooiloop at the end of 2008 and Wiel two years later. In 2006 the company bought a 50 per cent shareholding in Leisure Wheels.

With the death of Norton Ramsay in 1986, the executive responsibility for the company passed to his son, Alan. He was aided in running the company by his brother-in-law, Harold Eedes, who had joined the company in 1971 and who was appointed managing director of Ramsay, Son & Parker in 1999. The business continued to operate as a wholly family-owned concern until January 2006, when Caxton and CTP Printers acquired a 30 per cent shareholding in RS&P. Harold Eedes handed the reins to Stuart Lowe in June 2008, while Alan continues as CEO of the company.

RS&P continued to grow and diversify rapidly as technology made it possible for consumers to move beyond the medium of print. Digital and mobile initiatives, the launch of a TV and video production division, events, exhibitions and other ventures meant that Ramsay, Son & Parker evolved beyond being a magazine publisher to become a multi-platform media owner. In recognition of its new role, the company announced the adoption of a new name and corporate identity, RamsayMedia, on 20 November 2008.

Internally, day-to-day running of the company fell to the newly established executive committee, while the composition of the board of directors changed with the retirement of some members and the addition, in April 2009, of the fourth Ramsay generation. Scott Ramsay, Simon Turck and James Eedes were appointed as full-time directors and Peter Venn, Alan Ramsay’s son-in-law, as an alternate.

That same month a strategic partnership with Sanlam saw the company launch a new initiative, a custom publishing division. Reality, a quarterly lifestyle magazine directed at members of Sanlam’s Reality Lifestyle and Rewards programme, appeared for the first time in April 2009. A year later, in May 2010, it was joined by the bi-monthly Toyota Zone, a lifestyle publication for Toyota owners and dealers.