The Telegraph’s parent company has insisted it will soon have a million paying subscribers – aided by the decision to buy Classic Boat magazine.
Telegraph Media Group is in the early stages of seeking a new owner after banks wrestled control of the newspaper from the Barclay family early this year.
Potential bidders are now looking at the company’s accounts, with the chief executive, Nick Hugh, insisting the underlying business is in strong shape and will soon meet his longstanding target of having 1 million paying subscribers by the end of 2023.
Accounts released on Tuesday suggest Telegraph Media Group has had to work hard to hit Hugh’s target. The newspaper group only added 14,000 new subscribers in 2022, leaving the company stuck on 734,000 customers at the end of last year. This was substantially short of the chief executive’s benchmark and gave him only 12 months to make up the difference.
In a bid to close the gap, Telegraph Media Group recently bought the Chelsea Magazine Company, a print-focused business that publishes titles such as The English Home and The English Garden. These two titles alone have at least 90,000 paying subscribers – the majority of them in North America – which are now counted within the Telegraph’s headline figures. As a result Telegraph Media Group will now almost certainly meet the symbolic target ahead of schedule.
Other magazines now contributing to the Telegraph’s headline subscription figures now include titles such as Classic Boat, Wedding Ideas and Independent School Parent.
In addition, a further 180,000 Telegraph Media Group subscribers are either on free trials or accessing the site through bundle offers. The company insists these offers are worthwhile in the long term, as many stick around to become paying subscribers, with digital revenues up by a third year on year.
Operating profit prior to exceptional items hit £40.1m, up on the previous year, while overall revenue also grew slightly to £254m.
The Telegraph cited “continued strong cost management” as one of the reasons for its financial performance. One recent cost saving involved scrapping its industry-leading policy of offering all staff six months of parental leave on full pay, to the anger of many staff – including some who had already planned their leave.
The Telegraph is, like all newspaper groups, having to contend with the long-term decline of its print readership while trying to replace them with new digital subscribers. It is assisted by having a wealthy, Conservative-leaning audience who are attractive to advertisers.
Last week the former Openreach chair Mike McTighe was hired as the chair of the holding companies of Telegraph Media Group and the Spectator, with the task of steering them through a sales process. Telegraph Media Group insists it is in good financial health and there is no need for a rapid sale.
