Cross media ownership lacked commercial benefit for DMGT

The Daily Mail and General Trust's (DMGT) ownership of cross media assets has failed to bring commercial and editorial benefits to its titles, the trust's chief executive has said.

Charles Sinclair, giving evidence before a House of Lords communications committee today, said a lack of 'editorial synergy' between the properties had 'disappointed' DMGT.

DMGT currently owns radio broadcaster DMG Australia and has a 14.3 per cent stake in GCap Media. However, Sinclair added that properties previously owned by DMGT had failed to bring sufficient commercial benefits to the business.

Collaboration between the publisher's UK national titles was also limited, he added, with only printing press and distribution channels shared.

"I would say down the years when we have owned a variety of media assets, in the way we ran things, we have been rather disappointed in the cross media benefits," Sinclair told the committee.

"Our TV assets never had anything to do with our papers. We never got anything out of our very limited ownership of local radio.

"Cross media was an aspiration that in our case did not bring commercial benefit."

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