Murdoch tabloids -including The Sun – report £253m loss
Oh what a shame; my heart bleeds.
No, not really.
Any reduction in newspaper profitability loosens the Murdoch stranglehold on UK news reporting and makes it more difficult for him to set the agenda.
Add to that the rise of the social media and Mr Murdoch has a big – and growing problem.
This blog won’t be bothering The Sun‘s 1.93 million-a-day circulation for a while yet – but certain others have already smashed it.
Perhaps it’s time we all paid a little less attention to these so-called moguls.
The publisher of The Sun has reported a £253m loss after slashing the intangible value of its newspapers by more than a third amid declining print sales and continuing fallout from the phone hacking scandal.
News Group Newspapers, which also publishes the Sun on Sunday, said it had written down the titles’ intangible valuation by £204.3m after a review. Such calculations include estimates of the value of brands and goodwill.
It accounted for the biggest share of one-off charges totalling £276.7m. The figure also included costs of more than £50m related to the phone hacking and bribery scandal that engulfed the now-defunct News of the World and The Sun five years ago.
The publisher also took a charge of £10.2m for professional fees related to its Management and Standard Committee, the controversial internal unit set up to cooperate with police investigations. Legal claims against News Group Newspapers cost £4.3m for the year to the end of June 2015.
Turnover slid 6pc to £459.1m, which the company attributed to “continuing decline in newspaper circulation”.
“Advertising revenue also decreased during the year, reflecting the volatile national print advertising market and lower audience levels,” it added.
At 1.93m, the average circulation of the Sun was down 9pc compared with 2014. Its Sunday sister title sold an average of 1.56m copies, 12pc fewer.
Source: Murdoch’s tabloids report £253m loss
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
In one of my brain-fart moments I have looked at an article in the Sun online, not only was there minimum information on the article itself, but adverts were obscuring 60% of the page, and you had to register to see the article in its entirety, Um I think not!!!!
The rag was useless before it went online!
“Blue sails into the sunset . .” The bigger they come, the mightier they fall.
The solution to Murdoch’s dilemma will no doubt be to lower the standard of journalism to the lowest possible level he can get away with, run hate campaigns against particular demonised minorities, e.g., benefit claimants, and to bring back Page 3, this time in full colour, in the Sun. Appealing to the lowest possible denominator, persecution, and sex will be the way Murdoch goes. Mark my words.
Good
Won’t be long now, the Sun will mark it’s obituary with an exposé of it’s self….’How The Sun Fooled it’s Readers’. A fitting end to it’s propaganda campaign.
I remember that one Murdock’s rags in the USA got into trouble counting papers delivered to newsagents as sales for the purpose of setting the rate it charged to advertisers. Two things I’ve noted at newsagents in my region is that at the end of the day there are at 4 times as many Sun newspapers left unsold and to a lessor extent Times newspapers too.
Oh, dear! If he wants a Page 3 model now, he’ll have to do it himself.