 Logo used since 2011 | |
_(corrected).jpg) Dundee headquarters at Meadowside | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1905; 120 years ago (1905) |
| Founder | David Couper Thomson |
| Headquarters | Dundee, Scotland |
Key people |
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| Products | |
| Revenue |  £245 million (2016)[1] |
| £30.06 million (2016)[1] | |
| Total assets |  £1.404 billion (2016)[1] |
Number of employees | 2,148 (2016)[1] |
| Subsidiaries |
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| Website | dcthomson |
DC Thomson is a media company based inDundee, Scotland. Founded byDavid Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishingThe Courier,The Evening Telegraph andThe Sunday Post newspapers, and the comicsOor Wullie,The Broons,The Beano,The Dandy andCommando. It also owns theAberdeen Journals Group which publishes thePress and Journal. The company owns several websites, includingFindmypast, and owned the now defunct social media siteFriends Reunited.[2]
The company began as a branch of the Thomson family business when William Thomson became the sole proprietor of Charles Alexander & Company, publishers ofDundee Courier and Daily Argus. In 1884,David Couper Thomson took over the publishing business, and established it as D.C. Thomson in 1905. The firm flourished, and took its place as the third J in the "Three Js", the traditional summary of Dundee industry ("jute, jam andjournalism").[3]
Thomson was notable for hisconservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction oftrade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employCatholics.[4] Among historians of popular culture, the firm has "excited a good deal of interest precisely because it has always shrouded its activities in secrecy ... [it] has never allowed scholars access to its archives, and has declined to participate in exhibitions of juvenile literature."[5]
By 2010, the company was producing more than 100 millioncomics,magazines, andnewspapers every year from offices inDundee,Glasgow,Manchester, andLondon. In June 2010, 350 jobs at DC Thomson were made redundant with the closure of the West Ward Printworks in Dundee, along with a section of the Kingsway Print Plant.[6]
Although the principal offices are now located outside Dundee city centre at Kingsway, the Courier Building at Meadowside has been retained as the company headquarters. This 1902 building was designed to resemble an American red stone, steel reinforced office block. When a nine-storey tower extension was added in 1960, the architect T. Lindsay Gray kept the same style.[7] The building underwent extensive renovation and reopened to employees in 2017, and is able to accommodate 600 workers.[8]
In 2009 DC Thomson acquired the magazine company This England Publishing, which includedThis England magazine andEvergreen quarterly magazine. In the same year DC Thomson acquired theFriends Reunited website from ITV for £25.6m, but by 2011 it was valued at £5.2m and was eventually shut down completely in February 2016.[9] In 2013, DC Thomson laid off 46 production staff at its Lang Stracht base in Aberdeen after printing was moved to Dundee.[10]
As of 2016, the company posted an increase in pre-tax profits and revenue whilst employing over 2,000 workers. Despite the falling circulation of newspapers and magazines, DC Thomson attributed the rising profits to company-wide cuts to operating costs and good figures in digital revenues and events. The company went on to say that they would continue to branch out their brand into new areas to support the traditional newspaper and magazine divisions.[1][11]
In February 2023, it was announced that several "well-loved" titles would be closed and employees would be made redundant as part of a wider restructuring.[12] On 9 February 2023, it was announced thatShout,Living,Platinum Magazine,Evergreen,Animals & You andAnimal Planet would be closed with 300 employees being made redundant.[13] In January 2024, the company announced plans to eliminate 55 jobs and shutter four titles:This England,My Weekly Pocket Novels,110% Gaming andUnicorn Universe.[14]
Brightsolid is a data centre and cloud-based hosting company based inDundee that DC Thomson established in 1995 as Scotland Online. It became Brightsolid in 2008, organised into two divisions: Brightsolid Online Publishing (BSOP) and Brightsolid Online Technology (BSOT). The two divisions were split into separate businesses in October 2013, and Brightsolid Online Publishing was renamed DC Thomson Family History,[15] with Annelies van den Belt as chief executive.[16]
Findmypast Limited (formerly DC Thomson Family History, until 2015) owns a variety of largegenealogy sites worldwide, includingFindmypast,Genes Reunited[17] andMocavo. The company had contracts todigitise archives for theImperial War Museum and theBritish Library, where it was making theBritish Newspaper Archive searchable.[17]
DC Thomson once ownedBridlington-based children's publisher Peter Haddock until they closed it in late 2013.[18]
D.C. Thomson publications include:
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