Tag Archives: DMGT

Sky News: Express and Mail owners discuss merger

Sky News is reporting that Richard Desmond has discussed selling the Express to the Daily Mail and General Trust.

Writing on the Sky’s blog, City editor Mark Kleinman claims talks have taken place between the chairman of Northern and Shell and Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT.

The two men are now said to get on reasonably well, and I understand both believe that a deal could be in their interests. A merger of the titles would create a newspaper powerhouse commanding weekday sales of more than 3m copies, according to the ABCs (which measure newspaper circulation) for February.

It’s not clear what DMGT would plan to do with the Express if it did buy it. I’m told that it has considered launching a red-top tabloid to compete with the Sun at various points during the last decade, a consideration that would be fulfilled if it acquired the Daily Star and its Sunday sister title, which Desmond also owns.

Kleinman’s blog is not the first to report on the potential sale of the Express. Last month the Evening Standard mentioned a possible offloading of the title when reporting Desmond’s readiness to sell three magazines, including OK!

Roy Greenslade ponders what form a DGMT Express could take.

To reduce national press ownership would be a mighty step at a time when there are increasing concerns about pluralism and diversity of voice.

Of course, the nature of the merger need not result in the disappearance of the Express title. I guess it would be possible for DMGT to publish both papers.

Given their current similarity, there would be no point in producing the Express in its current form. Perhaps it could be transformed into a cheap Mail (on the lines of The Independent‘s kid sister, i).

Then again, maybe Desmond and Rothermere are just having a laugh. I say again: are they really being serious?

Guardian: Trinity Mirror and DMGT mulled merger of regional media

Trinity Mirror had “contemplated” selling some of its shares to the Daily Mail and General Trust earlier this year in return for DMGT’s regional newspaper group Northcliffe Media coming under its control, according to a report from the Guardian.

This would reportedly have been part of a merger which was allegedly being considered by the newspaper owners.

The basis of the deal was a scheme to bring together the two companies’ regional newspaper groups under the control of Trinity Mirror. In return Trinity would have offered a mixture of cash and shares to DMGT, giving it a strategic shareholder for the first time since the days of Robert Maxwell.

Negotiations between the two sides came to a halt, although Daily Mail executives have told their counterparts at Trinity that negotiations could resume in future.

paidContent: Northcliffe plans to tap into hyperlocal network for advertising revenue

The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) says its regional publisher Northcliffe will “tap its LocalPeople hyperlocal network” in an attempt to reach more advertisers online, paidContent reports.

According to the group’s preliminary results published yesterday, Northcliffe recorded several declines in the year ending October 2010, with underlying revenues down £16 million (six per cent), reported revenues have dropped by 8 per cent and advertising revenues were also down by 7 per cent.

Presenting the results yesterday morning, CEO Martin Morgan told investment analysts that the group is “trying to give ourselves a good shot at capturing local information markets”, paidContent reports.

“We’re going to be taking the technology platform we’ve built (for LocalPeople) and merging it with the ThisIs sites,” Morgan told analysts. “So local people can concentrate on finding a garage, finding a plumber in such a way that provides a long tail of local advertisers – people who aren’t advertising in the local press, we think we can get them in.

paidContent:UK: Why Mail Online is staying free

Publisher of the Mail Online, the Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), has shared some of its executives’ slide show presentations from an investor day.

The presentations explain on why the online paper is staying free, and not going down the the Times Online route.

You can download the slides here, or find paidContent:UK’s excellent summary at this link. The group says that while charging for niche and mobile might work:

MailOnline – uniquely among UK newspaper sites – is now big enough to make the advertising model pay.

FT.com: Daily Mail owner to launch 15 iPhone apps

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) will launch 15 applications in Apple’s iTunes store over the next six months.

Apps for Mail Online, Metro.co.uk and six other properties are expected to go live early next year. All will be free to download and supported by advertising.

Full post at this link…

MediaGuardian: DMGT records second highest ever profit

Interesting to note amidst a backdrop of job cuts and industry crisis talks that the newspaper industry is still a business – and sometimes still a big money one.

In its annual report released yesterday, publishing group Daily Mail & General Trust announced an operating profit for 2009 of £278 million.

The group’s businesses now make up 73 per cent (£203 million) of this operating profit, with newspaper publishing only accounting for 27 per cent (£75 million). Compare this to 1996 when DMGT’s newspapers made up 86 per cent of this figure.

“My father made a decision some 15 years ago to diversify the group away from the UK newspaper market into other media less dependent on newspapers, advertising and the UK. Given what has happened in the last year, that decision has proved to have been inspired. From next to nothing then, our B2B businesses have this year contributed nearly three quarters of the group’s profit, with over 60 per cent of our profits coming from outside the UK. While some of the diversification has been more successful than others, in total it has been a well executed expansion, largely into the United States, graveyard of so many UK company expansion plans,” said group chairman Viscount Rothermere in a statement.

Full story at this link…

paidContent:UK: Planned redundancies at Metro

More bad news for the freebie sector: paidContent:UK reports that up to 30 redundancies are planned for Metro’s regional arts and entertainment sections. Parent company DMGT declined to comment.

“Sources close to the paper say it is cutting back drastically on its Metro Life sections – the regionalised arts, entertainment and food pages produced by journalists at Metro’s offices in Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham and Bristol.”

Full story at this link…

MediaGuardian: DMGT to axe 1,000 from Northcliffe Media

Daily Mail & General Trust has announced possible job cuts of 1,000 at its regional publishing division Northcliffe Media.

The group posted a 24 per cent fall in advertising revenue across its national newspaper division and 37 per cent drop for regionals for Q1 2009.

Full story at this link…