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June 7, 2016updated 10 Jun 2016 9:16am

Top 29 companies in the UK journalism industry ranked by turnover

By Dominic Ponsford

The UK’s top 100 media companies have a combined revenue of £87bn, according to research by Deloitte.

Press Gazette’s analysis of the Deloitte Media Metrics list found that companies who employ journalists contributed £13.2bn.

Those whose business was described as “news publishing” contributed £5.9bn of the total.

The data is based on reported UK revenue at Companies House, so vastly under-estimates the true size of Facebook and Google which both only report a small fraction of their earnings in the UK.

Google UK is listed 14th overall with revenue of £1.2bn in 2014. Facebook only reported revenue in the UK of £105m, according to the report.

Advertising company WPP is said to be the biggest UK media company with revenue of £12.2bn.

Daily Mail publisher DMGT is the biggest news industry company on the list, in ninth position with revenue of £1.8bn.

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The report suggests that TV is the biggest media sector in the UK, with combined revenues among the top 100 companies of £35bn.

The revenue figures quoted are the latest UK figures available as of April 2016.

Deloitte lead partner for media and entertainment Dan Ison said: “It is clear from our research that the industry is moving towards an end-to-end game when it comes to content.

“Not only do media organisations want to engage with the consumer directly by owning the point of transaction, but they also want to own the IP of the content they create.

“There is an obvious financial motive for this: distribution-only companies have an average profit margin of just 1.2 per cent, whereas content creators typically generate average margins of 9 per cent, and are seven times more profitable. The old adage of ‘content is king’ has never been more relevant.”

Overall, Deloitte says revenue for the media top 100 has grown 21 per cent since 2011.

But most companies in the news sector were found have declining revenues over the three years to 2014 (listed in the table).

UK journalism industry companies ranked by turnover (source Deloitte)

Name of business Annual revenue (millions) 3-year growth to 2014 Industry sector
1 Daily Mail and General Trust plc: 1843 -1.2 news publishing
2 Reuters Ltd 1517 -5.8 information publishing and events
3 Informa Plc 1212 -3.8 information publishing and events
4 News Corp UK and Ireland 1172 -1.4 news publishing
5 UBM plc 770 -11.1 information publishing and events
6 Trinity Mirror plc 593 -5.8 news publishing
7 HM Publishers Holdings 590 -17.4 information publishing and events
8 Thomson Reuters (Professional) 481 22 information publishing and events
9 Northern and Shell 478 -11.4 news publishing
10 Conde Nast International Ltd 396 -4.9 magazine publishing
11 John Wiley and Sons Ltd 372 36.2 information publishing and events
12 The Economist Newspaper 328 -3.2 news publishing
13 Ascential Holdings Ltd (formerly Emap) 319 7.8 information publishing and events
14 Telegraph Media Group Ltd 318 -1.3 news publishing
15 The National Magazine Company Ltd 296 -3 magazine publishing
16 The Financial Times Ltd 288 -1.9 news publishing
17 Time Inc (UK) Ltd 280 -5.5 magazine publishing
18 Newsquest Media Group Ltd 279 n/a news publishing
19 Auto Trader Ltd 251 3.2 information publishing and events
20 Johnston Pres plc 245 -10.4 news publishing
21 Guardian Media Group plc 215 1.3 news publishing
22 Haymarket Media Group 184 -5.5 magazine publishing
23 Vancouver Topco Ltd (Immediate Media) 164 37.3 magazine publishing
24 TES Global Holdings 130 19.6 information publishing and events
25 Argus Media Ltd 124 20 information publishing and events
26 Archant 122 -3.4 news publishing
27 SAGE Publications Ltd 105 6.5 information publishing and events
28 Which? Ltd 96 6.9 magazine publishing
29 Euromonitor 88 10.9 information publishing and events

 

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