Guardian News & Media reports £44.2m loss

In a briefing to staff on Tuesday (17 July) Guardian News & Media revealed an operating loss of £44.2 million for the latest financial year, which it said had resulted from digital investment and "set-up costs for the five-year transformation programme".

This is an increase on the £31.1 million loss recorded in the previous year. The media group also announced it had re-opened its voluntary redundancy programme for editorial in a bid to cut costs by £7 million. The programme had previously run for three months from the end of September last year.

The briefing came ahead of the company's full annual report which is due to be released in August.

In the meeting with staff Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger and chief executive of Guardian Media Group Andrew Miller said the digital-first strategy was showing results with digital revenue rising 16.3 per cent to £45.7 million.

According to a spokesman this is now "largely offsetting the ongoing decline in print revenue for the first time".

Miller added: "Last year we explained how we would, over five years, transform GNM so that it not only survives the transition to digital but thrives on it.

"There is much work to be done but we are already seeing a significant surge in revenue from our investment in digital, helping GNM to maintain our revenues in a very tough market. Meanwhile, Guardian Media Group has grown its cash and investment fund and continues to be able to support the development of our journalism."

Staff were also updated on the Guardian's US operation which launched online last year, and is said to have led to an "80 per cent increase in US audience to over 20 million unique browsers per month".

In the UK Guardian News and Media is also now said to have "a larger British cross-platform audience than any of its UK quality news competitors".

"5.8 million people consume GNM content each week, over 300,000 more than the combined unduplicated digital and print reach of its nearest competitor (The Times and Sunday Times)".

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