An ownership blackhole hasn’t appeared to have swayed the Telegraph Media Group (TMG)’s target of reaching one million subscriptions by the end of this year.
The proprietor of The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, among others, reiterated its goal in today’s trading update, which outlined a 16% increase in underlying earnings and a 20% increase in operating profit (pre-exceptional times) to £33.3mln.
This was primarily driven by an increase in digital subscriptions.
EBITDA margins increased to 18.4% from 16.5% in 2021.
Like all other major news proprietors, TMG has struggled to stay afloat amid declining print circulation and advertising revenues.
To this end, TMG debuted a subscription-first approach in 2018 with a view to reaching 10mln registrants and 1mln subscribers by 2023.
From then until December 2022, the subscriber count increased 83% from 400,000 to 734,000.
Subscriber revenues have increased 30% to £57.9mln and currently constitute 51% of the total revenue mix.
TMG has faced deeper troubles than brader industry trends in recent months.
Lender Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LSE:LLOY) took TMG into receivership in June after previous owners the Barclay family, was unable to pay down debts greater than £1bn against the group.
Conservative leaders including Iain Duncan Smith have been pressuring Lloyds to find a suitable buyer who understood "the responsibility of owning a great newspaper".
The pro-Brexit Telegraph is widely knows for its Tory leanings and typically supports the Conservatives at general elections.