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BRITAIN-NEWSPAPER-MEDIA-ONLINE-GUARDIAN
UK Guardian group’s digital revenues surpass print
LONDON, July 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The British newspaper group that owns
The Guardian said Tuesday that its digital revenues had outstripped print for
the first time.
Guardian Media Group, which owns the daily and its Sunday sister paper The
Observer, said the change was fuelled by online readers increasingly making
voluntary financial contributions.
GMG said its digital revenues, which include reader contributions and
online advertising income, hit œ108.6 million ($142.7 million, 121.9 million
euros) in the last financial year.
Its income from printed newspapers and its events business brought in
œ107.5 million.
The group said it had 570,000 members who gave regular financial support
online, while its income was boosted by 375,000 one-off contributions from
readers in the past 12 months.
The Guardian has a print circulation of 140,000, the 12th-biggest among
Britain’s daily newspapers. The Sun has the biggest circulation at 1.5
million.
GMG chief executive David Pemsel said the company’s focus was on The
Guardian’s 10 million regular online readers.
The company has made savings over the past financial year through voluntary
redundancies and switching the print edition from a Berliner to a tabloid
format.
“When you were losing the sort of money we were losing historically,
combined with the challenges in the advertising market, and structural
decline in readership, that legitimises trying to make sure the headcount is
at the right level,” said Pemsel.
BSS/AFP/MRI/2332 hrs