Digitalbox PLC Pre-Close Trading Update and Notice of Results (0089Z)
January 09 2024 - 1:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMDBOX
RNS Number : 0089Z
Digitalbox PLC
09 January 2024
9 January 2024
Digitalbox plc
("Digitalbox" or the "Company")
Pre-Close Trading Update and Notice of Results
Digitalbox plc (AIM: DBOX), the mobile-first digital media
business, which owns Entertainment Daily, The Daily Mash, The Tab,
The Poke and TVGuide.co.uk, is pleased to provide the following
trading update ahead of the publication of its results for the
twelve months to 31 December 2023. The Company expects to announce
its results on 26 March 2024.
Digitalbox expects to deliver results in line with full year
market expectations. The challenges experienced in the year
including a difficult UK advertising market and the major platforms
restricting publisher traffic are easing. The restrictions placed
on Entertainment Daily for Google-sourced traffic have been
resolved with a return to more normal traffic levels from November
2023. Furthermore, the Company's most recent acquisition completed
in October 2023, TVGuide.co.uk, is working well within the
Digitalbox operating model and the Social Chain pages acquired in
September 2023 are performing in line with expectations and
providing ongoing audience amplification.
As a result, Digitalbox expects EBITDA* for the year ended 31
December 2023 to be in line with the most recent market
expectations and to see a return to more positive trading in 2024.
As at 31 December 2023 the Company had more than GBP1.9m in gross
cash.
James Carter, CEO, Digitalbox, said: "2023 was a turbulent
period. We faced a depressed advertising market driven by the
macroeconomic environment and some algorithmic platform issues
which have affected many publishers. These platform issues
particularly impacted audience levels for our leading brands
Entertainment Daily and The Tab. Despite these challenges, we
continued our strategy by acquiring TVGuide.co.uk and focused on
maximising the performance of our existing portfolio. This is
evidenced by The Poke acquired in December 2022, which has repaid
over half of its acquisition costs while trading well through a
difficult year."
"Looking ahead, TVGuide.co.uk provides a major expansion
opportunity in future years. After an extensive re-engineering
process to bring the brand onto our Graphene platform, we are
seeing encouraging traffic and revenue performance coming through.
We are mindful of the continuing difficult economic conditions but
we have confidence from the regaining of Entertainment Daily's
Google audience and a steady return in the ad market as we move
through 2024. From an audience perspective, the business has
diversified its traffic sourcing to a point where it is now
fundamentally more evenly balanced than at any point in the
Company's history. "
*All EBITDA figures quoted are for Adjusted EBITDA, defined as
the operating profit after adding back depreciation, amortisation,
impairment, share based payments, acquisition costs, direct costs
associated with business combinations and capital restructure
costs.
Market abuse regulation : This announcement contains inside
information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No
596/2014 as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("MAR").
Enquiries:
Digitalbox c/o SEC Newgate
James Carter, CEO
Panmure Gordon Tel: 020 7886 2500
(Nominated Adviser, Financial Adviser & Joint
Broker )
James Sinclair-Ford / Ivo Macdonald
Rupert Dearden / Rauf Munir
Leander Capital Partners (Joint Broker) Tel: 07786150915
Alex Davies
SEC Newgate (Financial Communications) Tel: 020 3757 6880
Robin Tozer / Molly Gretton digitalbox@secnewgate.co.uk
About Digitalbox plc
Based in the UK, Digitalbox is a 'pure-play' digital media
business with the aim of profitable publishing at scale on mobile
platforms.
Digitalbox operates the following trading brands, "Entertainment
Daily", "The Daily Mash", "The Tab", and "The Poke", and
"TVGuide.co.uk". Entertainment Daily produces and publishes online
UK entertainment news covering TV, showbiz and celebrity news. The
Daily Mash produces and publishes satirical news content. The Tab
is the UK's biggest youth culture site fuelled by students. The
Poke expertly curates and editorialises the funniest content from
around the web and social media. TVGuide.co.uk is an established
dedicated interactive UK TV listings brand.
Digitalbox generates revenue from the sale of advertising in and
around the content it publishes. The Group's optimisation for
mobile enables it to achieve revenues per session significantly
ahead of market norms for publishers on mobile.
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the
London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct
Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United
Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution
of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms
and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information
contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an
anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services.
For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange
use the personal data you provide us, please see our Privacy
Policy.
END
TSTBPMRTMTJMBTI
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 09, 2024 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)
Digitalbox (LSE:DBOX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Digitalbox (LSE:DBOX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024