Tycoon Danson pumps millions into New Statesman as losses rise
PUBLISHING tycoon Mike Danson has pumped millions of pounds into the New Statesman as losses mount at the Left-leaning magazine.
Mr Danson, who has owned the political weekly for 15 years, handed loans of £30m to the title’s parent company by the end of 2022.
He has also pledged to give financial support to the business over the next 12 months as it continues to rack up losses. Recently-filed accounts for Mr Danson’s holding company show a loss of £6.1m in 2022, while the group has debts totalling £34.4m.
However, a turnaround plan has been put in place and Mr Danson has promised to secure the title’s future.
The magazine, founded in 1913, last year hailed its highest readership in four decades as paid subscribers topped 43,000, though this is well below a peak of more than 90,000 in the 1960s.
But the uptick has failed to translate into an improved financial performance. Accounts for New Statesman
Media Group, which also owns titles including Press Gazette and Spear’s, show turnover dropped 15pc in 2022 to £4.8m. The company’s operating losses stood at £2.2m, though this was an improvement on the £6.2m loss posted the previous year.
The losses come only two years after editor Jason Cowley set out plans to triple paid subscriptions to 100,000 by targeting overseas readers in countries such as the US, France and Germany.
As part of the expansion plans, the magazine splashed out on high-profile writers, including former BBC political editor Andrew Marr.
However, executives have been forced to cut back spending in recent months to shore up finances. Costs at the holding group jumped 46pc to £6.8m in 2022. Bosses are now embarking on a turnaround plan for the New Statesman, which included a round of job cuts launched late last year.
The group’s headcount stood at 101 at the end of 2022, down from 128 a year earlier. The New Statesman also shut down its operations in Bulgaria three years after opening an office there.
Mr Danson, who sold his information business Datamonitor for £500m in 2007 and now leads analytics firm Globaldata, also owns business-to-business publications in sectors including architecture, defence, healthcare and hospitality.
Separately yesterday, Marc Benioff, the billionaire founder of IT company Salesforce, accused AI companies of stealing data to train their systems, making him one of the most prominent tech executives to side with publishers.
Mr Benioff, who also owns Time magazine, called for a system of standardised payments from AI companies that would determine the fair value of information such as news articles.