The owner of the Daily Mail, MailOnline, the i and Metro saw print advertising revenue plunge by 69% and digital income fall by almost a fifth in the three months to the end of June as the coronavirus lockdown hammered publishers.
Daily Mail & General Trust said that the 17% reduction in total digital revenues came despite an impressive boost of well over a third in traffic to its main digital property, MailOnline, as readers sought out news about the health emergency in record numbers.
The company said. “Since March, the impact of Covid-19 has resulted in a pronounced reduction in advertising revenues across both print and digital formats,”
“Growth in online traffic has helped mitigate the impact on digital but not enough to compensate for the overall reduction in advertising spend”.
Overall DMGT’s consumer media division saw total advertising fall 45% and newspaper sales drop 12% across the quarter, as brands put marketing budgets on hold and high streets shut as the nation went into lockdown.
The company also split out the performance of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, which saw overall advertising decrease by a third across the period, with print ads down 55%.
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