Le Monde Group recorded profitable operations in 2023, with Ebitda (gross operating surplus) increasing slightly (+18.7 million euros compared to +15.5 million euros in 2022), the result of stable operations of + 9.7 million euros and a net profit before taxes. of +2.3 million euros, as in 2022.
This general stability is based on the uneven evolution of our activities. In 2023, our magazine division, although still very profitable, has suffered the full brunt of inflation in industrial and energy costs, while the worldWith a more fragile economy, it experienced continuous growth in its digital subscriptions with an increase of 6% compared to 2022. This dynamic allowed the Le Monde brand to show almost balanced operations (– 0.4 million euros) with strong growth . prospects for 2024 given the electoral deadlines, particularly in France and the United States.
But this stability also marks the resilience of our economic model, patiently rebuilt since the recapitalization of the Le Monde group at the end of 2010. It has recorded, for nine years, without interruption, profitable operations. The model of digital transformation of daily life and the strength of the magazines with a significant and loyal number of readers have made it possible to maintain positive operations, protecting the group from the effect of extra-exogenous industrial costs and the fluctuations of the advertising market.
Record paid distribution
These results also confirm the predominance of the digital subscription model for digital activities, with a turnover of pure digital subscribers of more than 56 million euros for the Le Monde brand, with the Group’s digital turnover reaching almost a third of the total figure.
The 2023 financial year will also have been marked by the repeated support of our banking partners with the creation of a Resilience State Guaranteed Loan (PGE) and a renewable credit that has contributed to our group being able to invest close to 10 million euros this year. euros. in its digital transformation with a new priority given to our magazines. One of them, international mailIt is already number one in France for its portfolio of 69,000 digital subscribers.
Our continued investments in digital, but also the desire to provide editorial staff with the means to research and diversify the angles and topics covered, have been crowned by record levels of paid circulation, particularly for the worldwhich reached 500,000 digital subscribers at the end of the year. These performances were praised by the entire profession with three stars awarded by the Alliance for Press and Media Figures (ACPM) that rewarded both the greatest increase in its paid circulation (+ 25,245 copies) and its digital audience (+ 251,857,378 visits). , but also and more all its “consistency in success” and, in four years, the daily circulation increased by +203,668 copies.
passing of the baton
These results are also the fruit of a human investment exceptional in both its intensity and duration by an editorial team tirelessly requested during a year in which conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have darkened our prospects. We want to thank these teams once again for the rigor, quality and total independence of their work.
The first French weekly by readership, the main contributor to our group’s operating margin, the magazine Telerama It will have undergone a major change at its head in 2023. Following the appointment in the summer of 2022 of Fleur Lavedan to replace Catherine Sueur as general director of the title, this is a second transfer that Telerama organized: after seventeen years as editorial director, Fabienne Pascaud handed over at the end of the year, and after a vote of confidence from her editorial team, to Valérie Hurier. Fabienne Pascaud has developed her entire brilliant career in this title, of which she is a pillar, recognized and respected for her high level and her keen sense of cultural criticism. Now it is the turn of the tandem formed by Fleur Lavedan and Valérie Hurier to incorporate the entire team of Telerama in an adventure that will be both digital and on paper, without giving up the curiosity, diversity and demand that characterize this envied title.
In a market that has fallen by 8%, M Publicité, advertising agency for all the group’s brands, recorded a slight decrease (-4%) in its turnover in 2023, but remains a key element of the group’s economic model. Backed by an advertising charter that guarantees advertisers a quality editorial context and readers the absence of ambiguities in the content offered to them, M Publicité has seen its activity evolve in the Le Monde brand and in its special operations department. These two levers will be important axes of our future development.
Better structure our shareholders
Finally, while all the media, and in general all intermediary organizations, face a climate of mistrust, we have worked with the independence center and our shareholders to better structure our shareholding and reinforce the statutory elements that guarantee independence. Therefore, in 2023, we have adopted, before the summer, in the statutes of each of the publishers, a right of veto conferred on the editorial staff in the event that it is considered to terminate the functions of the director or – for magazines – of the editorial director during his tenure. This veto right is in addition to the one that the editorial office can exercise at the time of the appointment of the director or editorial director, as well as the right of approval conferred in 2019 to the independence center in the event of significant developments. actuated.
Another pillar of our governance, the group’s ethics and professional conduct committee registered the departure of its president, Dominique de la Garanderie, and his replacement by Magali Lafourcade, general secretary of the human rights advisory commission, at the joint proposal of the Society of Readers and the Society of Editors of the World. Dominique de la Garanderie led this committee with rigor and coherence. We warmly thank you for your help and your central role in our governance.
At the end of September 2023, the world He also announced the transfer by Daniel Kretinsky of all the shares he owned in the group’s capital to Xavier Niel, who then contributed them, along with those he already owned, to the Press Independence Fund, an endowment fund that thus becomes our largest shareholder.
At the end of these movements, the first two shareholders of the publisher of the World Currently there are, on the one hand, the Fund for the Independence of the Press, which provides in its statutes for the non-transferability of the shares of the Sociétépublisher du Monde, and, on the other, the independence pole of the Le Monde Group, which brings together editors’ societies, staff societies and the Society of Readers of the World. We are delighted with this operation, which heralds a new page in our history. The independence center greeted her in these terms: “Requested in advance as required by our statutes, the division unanimously approved these buyback and transfer operations that involve the departure of a shareholder without, furthermore, never having requested approval from the division. »
Each of these developments, each of these investments takes shape with a single intention: to deserve your trust, to live up to the demands you have towards each of our titles. Once again, thank you for this loyalty that gives meaning to our collective work.
