Company that has agreed to buy the Observer reports a pre-tax loss of £3.8m for 2023 after shedding some roles. Tortoise Media, which has agreed to buy the Observer newspaper, has reported a smaller annual loss after reducing spending and cutting some staff.
The podcast, newsletters and live events company reported a loss before tax of £3.8m for 2023, down from the previous year’s loss of £4.6m. Turnover fell slightly to £6m, down from £6.2m, amid “consumer and corporate hesitancy”, according to accounts filed with Companies House.
The improved financial performance resulted from streamlining its live events programme, reducing its editorial and production workforce and offering voluntary redundancy, the company said. The number of staff working in editorial and production fell to 44, down from 52, administrative and support staff reduced to six from eight people, and commercial staff rose to 14 from 12.
Tortoise was launched in 2019 by James Harding, a former editor of the Times and former director of news at the BBC, and Matthew Barzun, a former US ambassador to the UK. Tortoise said 2023 was a “challenging year for consumers and as a result the competition for news and information subscriptions were hard fought” with alternative sources posing a “significant threat to quality journalism”. It said its mixed business model meant it was “well placed to adjust to changes in consumer behaviour”.
Tortoise said it incurred one-off redundancy costs of almost £520,000 in 2023. It also made share awards to high-performing employees totalling £321,545. Directors’ total remuneration, including pension contribution, fell to £416,000 from £598,000.
