From online bingo to market intelligence data, the major publicly listed UK media companies are all emphasising their growth in digital revenue to investors. We look at how each company is performing digitally so far this year
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Digital revenue growth ranging from nine to 58 per cent year-on-year has been a common theme running through all of the major publicly listed UK news companies' latest financial results.
Publishers have sought to emphasise their increased focus on digital to investors – and in many cases have pointed out that the online growth is offsetting declines in traditional print advertising.
However, their priorities – and the percentage of total income that they currently derive from digital activities – vary greatly, with some publishers such as Informa expecting to become 100 per cent digital by next year while others are still struggling around the five per cent online revenue mark.
With all of the major companies having now updated the market on their performance since the new year, here we give a round-up of their digital achievements - and their ambitions.
Leisure publisher Future has seen its online revenue surge on the back of the rapid evolution of the tablet computer, spearheaded by Apple's iPad. The company says it represents an "enormous opportunity" and has been developing tablet magazine production software that it is now licensing to other publishers. Apple Newsstand sales are averaging £500,000 a month and the group is also working with Amazon and Barnes & Noble in the US.
"We are now seeing Future begin to generate significant revenues from new digital products and activities. In the UK, digital growth offset the decline in print revenues. On Apple's iPad, Future is one of the world's leading digital publishers in sales volumes and number of titles. That is a sign of how far we have come in a very short time."
Johnston Press is seeing growth in online display, online employment, and its Find it directory business - and has signed recently signed partnerships with Motors.co.uk and property platform Zoopla . The publisher announced last month that it was turning five daily newspapers into weeklies and is revamping all of its other print titles as part of a move towards "platform-neutral" publishing.
: "We aim to put digital at the heart of Johnston Press. Newspapers will remain our primary revenue stream for many years to come, but the web and apps, accessed from PCs, tablets and smartphones, are becoming as important, if not more so, as an access method for an increasing percentage of our audience."
The relaunch of Mirror Online and improved revenue from online bingo are helping drive Trinity Mirror's digital earnings. The group launched a new daily deals website , Happli, in March which has attracted 100,000 subscribers and aims to extend it beyond the eight launch cities by the end of this year. However, the publisher has warned of a difficult period, expecting a 10 per cent advertising revenue drop this month.
"We remain on track with the transformation of our publishing capabilities to support the development of a multi-platform media business to be completed by the end of 2013."
The runaway success of Mail Online has seen its revenue grow by 69 per cent year on year - and the site looks on course to break even this summer. Digital advertising is up across the group, primarily from jobs and property.
"Circulation and digital revenue growth are largely offsetting print advertising weakness."
Almost half of the Financial Times's paid circulation comes from digital subscribers – some 285,000 in the first quarter of 2012.
"The FT is taking further actions in the first half to accelerate its shift from print to digital formats and from advertising to subscription revenues."
Centaur is gradually increasing its digital contribution to revenue - up from 28 per cent to 31 per cent in the past year - after restructuring the business to concentrate more on digital and events;
"We are encouraged by the progress made towards growing digital revenues and increasing margins. As anticipated, we have seen some weakness in print revenues but this has been offset by good growth across our digital and events revenues."
Informa is moving away from some print advertising revenue markets to focus on digital advertising contracts and expects to become fully digital by the end of next year. In 2011, 74 per cent of all publishing revenues were derived from digital activities.
"We remain committed to building digital, high quality subscription businesses within our core sectors and we are making good progress towards our strategy of being a digital only information provider by the end of 2013."
The group's Reed Business Information division is seeing continued declines due to weak print advertising markets in Europe, but the company says it is making progress at moving towards paid content and subscriptions.
"Significant progress has been made in increasing the focus of the RBI portfolio on paid content and subscription based online data services."
