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 has begun the process of finding a new owner, after the Barclay Family lost control of their newspaper to the banks 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 added only 14,000 new customers in 2022. This left the company with 734,000 subscribers at the end last year. This was substantially short of the chief executive’s benchmark and gave him only 12 months to make up the difference.
Telegraph Media Group bought Chelsea Magazine Company in an effort to close this gap. This print-oriented business publishes titles like 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. Telegraph Media Group has now achieved the symbolic goal well 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.
A further 180,000 Telegraph Media Group members are also either free trial users or have access to the site via bundle offers. The company claims that these offers will pay off in the long run, since many people who sign up for free trials become paying subscribers. Digital revenues are also on the rise.
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, along with all other newspaper groups, is struggling to maintain its print audience while attempting to replace it with new digital subscribers. It has a wealthy and conservative audience that is attractive to advertisers.
Mike McTighe, the former chair of Openreach, was appointed last week as chair of the holding company of Telegraph Media Group (TMG) and The Spectator. His task is to guide them through a sale process. Telegraph Media Group says it has a healthy financial situation and does not need to sell quickly.