How the Telegraph made its million

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Two months ago we took the up-for-saleness of Telegraph Media Group, the British newspaper-and-other-things provider, as an excuse to check out its growth performance.

Using the profound method of transposing the numbers TMG releases into a spreadsheet, we observed that the paper — as of the end of 2022 — was floundering in terms of its subscription growth strategy, and would only hit a well-publicised aim of acquiring 1mn subscribers by the end of this year with either a miracle or some sleight of hand.

We noted that the company’s recent acquisition of The Chelsea Magazine Company — which Alphaville readers will know for titles such as Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting — represented a possible shortcut for chief executive Nick Hugh to reach his desired milli:

Hitting seven figures might only require pumping up of the core numbers with freebies and bolt-on extras.

Given 10-1-23 [10mn registrations and 1mn paying subscribers by the end of 2023] is Hugh’s headline target, it will be interesting to see how he spins this at the end of the year. If he still works at TMG by then.

The Telegraph dropped its 2022 accounts late last month — and they basically confirm: yes, this. (We’re a little late to this due to the author’s against-doctor’s-orders visit to a country with sunlight, but content is content.)

TMG’s June subscription report — the first since December’s figures dropped, in January — show the company’s biggest-ever jump in subscriptions, up from 733,731 to 974,709.

How was such a surge achieved?! Well, obviously, in large part via the CMC acquisition, the Telegraph’s overall subscription numbers are now more than a fifth derived from print and digital subscriptions to brands such as Classic Boat, The English Home and Independent School Parent, or to the Tel’s Puzzle and Wine product offerings:

(NB: Puzzle subscriptions were rolled into the Digital figure until the latest release, so presumably their move into CMC/other has had some impact on the Digital count.)

Befitting their status as KPI froth, the subscriptions from this CMC/other set are also far less valuable than those for the Telegraph newspaper and website:

Here’s a quote — via The Drum — from, uh, Nick Hugh, made at the launch of the 10-1-23 strategy in 2019:

We don’t disclose our subscriber numbers because it becomes a volume game which creates the wrong incentives. I’m not interested in ‘this newspaper got to the 1 million before this newspaper’ because if the 1 million had an ARPU of 15 and this one has half a million (subs) but an ARPU of 115 then I will take [the latter] everyday.

We noted the impact of free/bundled “subscriptions” in the prior post. Both have risen, uh, substantially so far this year: from a total of 119,439 to 180,545 — a 51.2 per cent increase.

Here’s how the figures look without the free/bonus “subscriptions” included, and then excluding both the free/bonus “subscriptions” AND the CMC/other subs:

Victory is in sight. And all it took was making a lower-value, last-minute bolt-on acquisition for an undisclosed sum, and giving away a load of subscriptions! 🙂

How the Telegraph’s owners will respond to the presumably-looming “1 million subscribers reached!” bumpf is unknowable (as is who those owners might soon be). Hugh, at least, is pretty used to numerical rollercoasters: after nearly doubling his remuneration from £789,000 to £1.5mn in 2021, he took a £500k total pay cut to just £1mn last year.

The Telegraph didn’t respond to Alphaville’s request for comment but we’ll update the post if they eventually do.

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