BINGO SHINES ON THE SUN

7 September 2007

280 percent revenues growth over past year


According to the media section of The Guardian newspaper online bingo has been generating significant business - GBP 3.8 million of it in the last financial year - for News Group Digital. NGD oversees the operations of the Sun Online, Page3.com and the News of the World website, which saw a 280 percent year-on-year increase in revenues for its commercial partnerships.

SunBingo claims to be the biggest web-only bingo game in the UK, the newspaper reports, with 110 000 unique users each month and 9 000 every day. The group's upsurge in revenues is the result of several profitable partnerships including those between thesun-poker.co.uk and the Victor Chandler group and a deal that saw Ladbrokes become the official gaming partner of TheSun.co.uk and the Newsoftheworld.co.uk, offering co-branded online betting and gaming.

NGD has also benefited from the industry-wide growth of online advertising, with revenues up 38 percent from the 12 months ending June 2006 to the following year. Advertising revenues rose 44 percent and cross-media advertising by 8 percent in the same period.

The figures were presented during a recent awayday when staff were told that revenues have grown more than 100 percent year-on-year to more than GBP 30 million.

Mike Gordon, the deputy managing director of News Group Newspapers, told staff that the site had "aggressive growth targets", but admitted that in terms of digital strategy the company has "no history" and is "making it up as we go along". Nevertheless, the group is projecting GBP 3.2 million annual revenue from the mobile soccer video highlights service using Barclays Premiership rights owned by News Corp bedfellow BSkyB.

NGD is focusing on several key channels: gambling, gaming, dating, dieting and ecommerce.

Latest independent monthly statistics (from Forrester/TGI Net/Hitbox/Red Sherriff ) show total page impressions of 140 352 395, or a daily average of 4 288 597, with total unique users at 5 707 277 or a daily average of 311 476.

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