Business to business units boost DMGT revenues

PUBLISHING group Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) yesterday posted a rise in revenues after an increase in business-to-business work outweighed a drop in turnover at its newspaper titles.

Euromoney, a publishing and events unit, posted an 11 per cent rise in quarterly revenues, while its Risk Management Solutions arm, which supplies information to insurers, saw a 12 per cent increase. That helped to overcome a 2 per cent drop in revenues at its newspaper business.

The decline in advertising revenues at its national titles – which include the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – accelerated to 9 per cent in January from an underlying 2 per cent for the quarter. Circulation revenues for its national titles were up 5 per cent, following cover price increases at the Daily Mail in July and October. Analysts noted that Mailonline became the world’s most popular website owned by a newspaper group after its 99 million users a month overtook the New York Times’s total in December.

Overall, group revenue rose by 2 per cent to £495 million in the three months to 1 January. But DMGT chief executive Martin Morgan warned: “The economic outlook is very hard to read.”