Digitalbox PLC (AIM:DBOX) CEO James Carter talked with Proactive about the company’s strong 2024 performance and its strategy heading into 2025.
The company delivered a 31% increase in revenue during the year, with CEO James Carter describing it as “a good turnaround year.” He pointed to audience growth of 10%, outperforming broader news media trends, and revenue growth that exceeded global digital advertising market averages.
Carter credited the success to the strength of Digitalbox’s brands and editorial teams, as well as the company’s in-house Graphene Ad Stack technology. “The editorial teams are really very well tuned in to what their audiences want,” he said.
Among standout performers were TV Guide, which achieved 90% traffic growth in Q4 following a move to a web app format, and The Tab, which benefited from social media asset integration. The Poke also saw a 22% increase in traffic following increased content investment.
The company expanded its portfolio from six to eight brands in 2024, aiming to reach ten by the end of 2025. It also launched a new site, Reality Shrine, combining acquired and internal assets to enhance market entry.
Looking ahead, Carter said 2025 is in line with expectations so far, and Digitalbox remains “cautiously optimistic” amid projected 10% growth in the digital ad market.
Proactive: James, very good to speak with you this morning. You're out with your 2024 results, and it looks like it really was a landmark year for Digitalbox.
James Carter: Yes, it was a good turnaround year for us. We managed to grow the business in revenue terms by 31% and outperformed the market in two key areas. From an audience perspective, we grew by 10% against the backdrop of a news media industry that's generally in decline. From an advertising point of view, the revenue growth outperformed the global digital advertising market, which grew by 10% over the past year — and we did at least double that. So it was a pleasing year, with good results against our underlying business and some strong performances in focus areas like TV Guide.
Proactive: What would you put your outperformance down to, James? Is it the strength of your brands?
James Carter: It's the strength of our brands and the strength of our teams. They deliver fantastic engagement and very efficient editorial delivery that generates audience scale. The editorial teams are very well tuned in to what their audiences want to consume, and that helps us outperform the average player in the market.
From a commercial point of view, we have a range of skills in the business — both human and technological. Our Graphene Ad Stack, which we've deployed in areas like TV Guide, combined with human input, is a key reason for our strong performance.
Proactive: You singled out TV Guide, but The Tab and The Daily Mash also did well. And you've added to your portfolio of brands. How does that position you now?
James Carter: Yes, we had six operating brands in 2024, and we've now got eight. We plan to move to at least ten by the end of this year. The Tab did well, with 15% traffic growth. Part of that was driven by our acquisition of 99 Problems — a social page we bought from Media Chain. It had been dormant, but we increased its reach from about 500,000 a day to around 10 million, and aligned it with The Tab. That’s driven audience growth.
TV Guide had different reasons for growth — we saw 90% traffic growth in Q4. We made a lot of technology changes and introduced a web app experience, so it's now accessible through both iOS and Android. That seamless integration has increased volumes significantly.
As for The Poke, we increased content output, and with the political situation in the US, there’s plenty of material. The Poke is one of the best at gathering humorous content, and traffic was up 22%.
Proactive: How are your recent acquisitions being integrated? All going smoothly?
James Carter: Yes, absolutely. TV Guide, The Tab, and The Poke were all fully formed assets when we acquired them. They had operations in place but were underperforming. We’ve been able to refresh and refocus them to make them more profitable.
We're also looking at assets that are less developed. We launched Reality Shrine about a month ago, after acquiring Reality Tidbit from GRV Media late last year. We combined it with internal assets like the Pop Shrine social page.
By blending these together, we created a product that had a stronger start — it went straight into Google indexing. That’s the benefit of combining parts to create more value.
Proactive: You ended the year with a strong cash position. You’ve already hinted at more acquisitions. How does 2025 look for Digitalbox?
James Carter: 2025 is looking good — in line with expectations so far, as we approach the end of Q1. We took PWC forecasts that point to 10% ad market growth in 2025, 2026, and 2027. The global digital ad market is expected to grow by about 251 billion compared to 2024.
We’re cautiously optimistic. The global economy isn't in great shape, but we’d rather be operating in a market growing at 10% than 1%, so we’re in the right space.
Proactive: I hope you'll keep us posted on any progress this year. Thank you very much for the update today.