Future plc’s share price bounced back by more than 10% in response to its full-year results for 2024, suggesting the worst may be behind the specialist publishing group.
CEO Jon Steinberg told Press Gazette he believes the business has reached an inflection point and was also confident recent Google changes will not harm Future’s affiliate marketing business in the same way it has some other publishers.
Meanwhile the group revealed it has signed a deal with OpenAI, involving a small but “not financially material” payment, to ensure Future’s content is discoverable and attributed on the platform.
Future returned to growth with revenue up 1% year on year on an organic basis (excluding the impact of currency fluctuation) for the year to the end of September. The £788.2m revenue total compares with a peak of £825m in 2022.
The last year has seen retrenchment from Future as it closed a number of titles to focus around businesses with better capacity for growth. Over the last three years the switch from growth to contraction has seen Future lose two thirds of its market value.
Overall, revenue growth in 2024 was driven by insurance comparison site Go Compare, which grew 28% to turnover of £203m.
Revenue for the B2B division, which includes the likes of PC Pro and Music Week, fell 1% to £62m.
And revenue from the flagship B2C brands, such as Marie Claire, The Week and Country Life, fell 8% to £523m.
Overall adjusted operating profit for the year fell 13% to £222m.
Future has little events and online subscription revenue so has leaned heavily into e-commerce/affiliate advertising as the source of future earnings for its magazine brands amid the continued decline of print.
Revenue from this side of the business fell 9% over the full year, but grew 12% in the second half reflecting the impact of new investment.
Steinberg told Press Gazette: “The growth acceleration programme is working. The reason we have a positive response today [from investors] is because of the green shoots – the US digital advertising growth in H2, e-commerce products and rewards are in growth.
“The business has returned to growth on an organic basis – people have been looking for a positive inflection point in the business and that is very much what we are showing today. The reaction has been very favourable so far. People want to see the business turning around and we’ve shown that today.”
But he emphasised this morning that he has a year’s notice period and would be staying in post for some time to come whilst a successor is appointed and the handover period completed.
Asked about recent Google changes which have downgraded the visibility of recommended product pages and vouchers for many publishers, hitting e-commerce revenue, Steinberg said he was confident Future would not be affected
He said: “The people that have been hit outsourced a lot of their reviews and vouchers. When you look at the Google policy that rolled out it was related to using third parties to create e-commerce and voucher content.
“We do it all in-house: we review the products, we find the discounts, we publish them on our own platform. Nothing is outsourced to a third party.
“We brought in 50 new editorial heads to the business this year. I think we are writing some of the best reviews, how-to guides, product comparisons and the like. There is no gaming Google, you need to write the best possible content… I think it comes down to quality and that’s why we are performing in e-commerce right now.”
Overall, he said: “Our traffic has been stable as long as I’ve been at the business, since we had that step down in traffic about two years ago. We’ve been stable since then. Over the year we’ve seen 2% sessions growth, which is modest but at the same time better to be green than be red.
“We are seeing good performance in tech and games in terms of traffic.
“We have been favourably or not negatively impacted by algorithm changes.”
Future is forecasting further modest business growth of 1% next year with that rate accelerating in 2026.
He said: “Hopefully we are coming out of a macro weak point. It’s taken longer than most people anticipated, and challenges to the advertising market overall. I’m very optimistic heading into 2025 and 2026.”
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