Guardian’s digital revenue up 30%
Digital revenue increases helped Guardian News & Media (GNM) cut its losses significantly to £30.9m in the year to March 2013, according to its latest results announced today (16 July).
The figure represents an improvement from the year beforehand when the publisher recorded a loss of £44.2m, with total revenue for the 12 months to March 2013 hitting £196.3m – compared to £194.4m in 2012.
The publisher of The Guardian also announced digital revenues increased 28.9 per cent year on year to hit £55.9m, outstripping the ongoing decline in print revenues which totalled £140.4m during the period.
GNM also reported a pre-tax loss of £30.9m, compared to £44.2m a year earlier.
This reduction in GNM’s losses has been aided by its both its digital revenue increase plus a series of cost-cutting measures, including a number of redundancies among its editorial department, made throughout the period.
Andrew Miller, Guardian Media Group, CEO, hailed the publishing group’s investment in digital technologies and focus on efficiencies as a significant contributor to the results.
He says: “Investing in the future is a key part of our strategy for this news organisation – every bit as important as the target of taking £25m out of the cost base by the end of 2015/16. Thus far, we are meeting or exceeding all our targets in this respect.”
At the end of the financial year, GNM’s Guardian online recorded an audience of 78.3 million monthly unique browsers, up from 67.8 million in March 2012, according to the publisher’s latest ABC numbers.
Last week, GNM announced the appointment of broadcast marketing veteran Tim Hunt as marketing director to further drive the newspaper’s “digital first” output.
