Week 2: theguardian.com - Ownership

Hi there!

This is week 2 and I'm going to talk about the ownership of the news outlet I've chosen, which is theguardian.com.uk.

So according to Wikipedia, The Guardian is part of the GMG Guardian Media Group of newspapers, radio stations, print media including The Observer Sunday newspaper, The Guardian Weekly international newspaper, and new media—Guardian Abroad website, and guardian.co.uk.

All the above mentioned, were actually owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups.

At the beginning of October 2008, the Scott Trusts assets were transferred to a new limited company, The Scott Trust Limited, with the intention being that the original trust would be wound up. Dame Liz Forgan, chair of the Scott Trust, reassured staff that the purposes of the new company remained as under the previous arrangements.

However, The Guardian has been consistently loss-making. The National Newspaper division of GMG, which also includes The Observer, reported operating losses of £49.9m in 2006, up from £18.6m in 2005. The paper is therefore heavily dependent on cross-subsidisation from profitable companies within the group, including Auto Trader (which the Guardian Media Group sold in January 2014).

Therefor I can conclude that, The Guardian is actually a Limited company but due to its loss making each year, The Guardian is heavily dependent on cross-subsidisation from profitable companies within the group.

Also, In June 2011 Guardian News and Media revealed increased annual losses of £33m and announced that it was looking to focus on its online edition for news coverage, leaving a physical newspaper that was to contain more comment and features. It was also speculated that the Guardian may become the first British national daily paper to go solely online.

For the three years up to June 2012, the paper lost £100,000 a day, which promptedIntelligent Life to question whether The Guardian can survive.


Cheers,
J.