A second year of traffic turbulence led to continued revenue decline at Hearst UK in 2024, according to newly-filed accounts.
Total revenue at National Magazine Company Ltd (the trading name of Hearst UK) was down 6.5% from £111.9m to £104.6m in the year to 31 December 2024.
Within that, digital advertising revenue declined by £6.5m amid a 12% decrease in average UK monthly page views to 24.3 million.
The publisher of titles including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Digital Spy, Elle, Women’s Health and Men’s Health said in its Companies House accounts that this was attributed to “a number of factors including platform and search engines algorithm changes”.
Google’s AI Overview summaries at the top of search results went live in 2024, with numerous other algorithm updates from the search giant also affecting publisher clickthroughs.
[Google and publishers: An unpredictable animal that could eat you at any time]
Excluding the recovery after the Covid-hit year of 2020, revenue at Hearst UK has declined every year since 2013. In the past ten years total revenue has fallen by almost two-thirds (65%).
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Despite this Hearst UK said print revenue in 2024 had “proved resilient with growth in print advertising and subscription revenue and a much-improved newsstand performance”.
The publisher also reported growing operating losses, from £3.6m in 2023 to £10.4m. Excluding exceptional items, operating losses increased from £1m to £7.1m.
The company moved into a pre-tax loss of £5.2m, including exceptional restructuring/redundancy costs of £3.3m, from a pre-tax profit of £685,000 (with restructuring costs of £2.6m) in 2023.
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Staff numbers were down from a monthly average of 718 in 2023 to 668 in 2024. The drops were in central and sales divisions, with editorial up by one staff member to 327.
The tough 2024 for page views from search followed changes to social algorithms, especially Facebook, that resulted in a 31% drop in unique visitors from 64.9 million in 2022 to 45 million in 2023.
The digital growth strategy for Hearst UK is now based around paid subscriptions and memberships.
Digital subscriptions were up across all brands, the accounts said, with a 25% increase overall in the year. Digital subscriptions now account for 21% of the portfolio’s total circulation.
Total paid subscriptions (across print and digital) were up 2% in 2023 and a further 4% in 2024, reaching 987,000 from 952,000 at the end of 2023.
The accounts said: “The customer strategy continues to focus on three key areas; maximising newsstand revenues, growing digital subscriptions through content distribution, and increasing direct paid subscriber relationships through new membership launches, improved digital product, and wider subscriber choice (bundles).
“The focus on growing subscriptions reversed, outside of the pandemic, a long-standing decline in subscriber numbers as paid subscribers grew for the second year in a row, up to 987,000 by the end of 2024.”
Hearst UK’s membership offerings, which include perks and community features that go beyond standard subscriptions, are now live on Elle, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Runner’s World and Good Housekeeping
There was also “robust” affiliate revenue from the Good Housekeeping Institute’s testing facilities and accreditation.
[Read more: Good Housekeeping MD Liz Moseley’s ambitious growth plan for 102-year-old brand]
Continued digital advertising decline could result in the publisher having to impair the value of its assets, the accounts showed.
“The value in use of assets is heavily reliant on the recovery of digital advertising revenue in FY25 and continued growth in later years,” the report said.
“A 7.5% growth rate has been assumed in the forecast for digital revenue in FY25 and 5% for the following years.
“If the short-term growth rate for digital revenue declined by 2% each year instead of the growth assumed above, this would take the carrying value of the assets to £19.1m, resulting in an impairment of £2.3m.”
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