DMGT sales rise as Mail Online reaches a profit
DAILY Mail & General Trust (DMGT) reported a rise in turnover yesterday as a 69 per cent increase in online ad revenue made up for falling print revenues.
The owner of the Daily Mail and more than 100 regional titles posted a three per cent rise in revenue to £509m in the three months to July, mainly driven by the group’s business to business operations including its stake in financial information publisher Euromoney.
Associated Newspapers, the division that runs the Mail papers and Mail Online website, saw sales rise by one per cent as a print advertising decline was propped up by rising internet advertising revenue and a four per cent jump in circulation, attributed to the Diamond Jubilee.
Mail Online is now the most-read newspaper website in the world, having overtaken the New York Times with more than 5.6m people visiting the website daily. It became profitable for the first time last quarter.
Associated Newspapers also cut 105 staff over the period, bringing total job losses to 533 during the last nine months.
The group’s regional division, Northcliffe Media, continued to suffer as advertising revenues fell 11 per cent year-on-year.
Shares in DMGT rose slightly yesterday, with the news better than expected after a fall in sales in the last quarter.
The bulk of the company’s growth was down to a nine per cent rise in Euromoney and a 10 per cent boost to DMGT’s events business.