Telegraph outsources print advertising sales to Daily Mail commercial division

Telegraph CEO Nick Hugh in the newsroom — Telegraph chief executive officer Nick Hugh in front of the title's newsroom in Victoria. Picture: Telegraph

Telegraph Media Group has outsourced its print advertising sales to the Daily Mail’s commercial division.

Mail Metro Media will sell all print advertising for The Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Telegraph Magazine, Stella and the brand’s special premium and luxury magazines under a multi-year contract starting from 4 May.

An unspecified number of Telegraph staff are moving to Mail Metro Media as part of the deal to ensure a “smooth transition”.

A consultation process has begun with fewer than 50 non-editorial staff affected, Press Gazette understands. The Telegraph will maintain its partnerships and commerce teams.

It is the latest move in The Telegraph’s subscriber-first strategy which has seen it pull out of ABC’s public auditing for print newspaper circulation and close its award-winning branded content division Spark, which worked with brands such as IBM, Specsavers and Skoda.

The Telegraph is aiming to reach 1m subscribers by 2023 with 10m registered users signed up.

In February it had 594,324 subscriptions across print (192,386) and digital (401,938), and 6.1m registered users.

TMG chief executive Nick Hugh (pictured) said: “The advertising landscape is calling out for an easier route to purchase, and today’s agreement enables the Telegraph to fulfil these requirements and future-proof the business.

“This change will allow the team at the Telegraph to continue to focus on its successful subscriptions-first strategy, and achieving our overall strategic goal of 1m subscribers by 2023.”

TMG said it would now focus on growing its partnerships team, which works with brands to “support the delivery of their corporate and marketing objectives” through its premium audiences in print and digital.

Mail Metro Media was formed in 2018 with the merger of the Mail and Metro advertising teams and now also represents sales for the i since DMG Media’s buyout was cleared last year.

Grant Woodthorpe, executive director of investment at Mail Metro Media, said: “We look forward to expanding our portfolio and taking a fresh approach to market, offering even more great solutions to our customers and streamlining access and organisational approaches, whilst maintaining exceptional standards across both businesses.”

TMG’s 2019 accounts, the latest available, said the “continued structural decline in print advertising” contributed towards a 2% drop in turnover to £265.8m but said this was increasingly being offset by growing subscriber revenues.

Last year TMG was hit by a “significant reduction” in advertising revenues because of Covid-19, as were many publishers, with “continued competition and volatility primarily in the advertising market” a challenge regardless of the pandemic.

Picture: Telegraph