Industry Publishing Total assets £1.404 billion (2016) Revenue 245 million GBP (2016) Number of employees 2,148 Founded 1905 | Operating income Website www.dcthomson.co.uk Headquarters Dundee, United Kingdom Founder David Coupar Thomson Type of business Private | |
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Key people Andrew Thomson (chairman) Products Sunday Post, The Evening Telegraph
My Weekly, Jackie, Shout
The Beano, The Dandy, Commando
See also: list of DC Thomson Publications Subsidiaries Parragon, Aberdeen Journals | ||
Speed round with annelies van den belt dc thomson family history at startup grind toronto
DC Thomson is a British publishing and television production company best known for producing The Dundee Courier, The Evening Telegraph, The Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy, and Commando comics. It also owns Parragon and the Aberdeen Journals Group which publishes the Press and Journal. It was a significant shareholder in the former ITV company Southern Television. Through its subsidiary DC Thomson Family History the company owns several websites including Friends Reunited and Findmypast. Based in Dundee, Scotland, the company also owns children books publisher Parragon.
Contents
- Speed round with annelies van den belt dc thomson family history at startup grind toronto
- Annelies van den belt dc thomson family history at startup grind toronto
- History
- Publications
- Brightsolid
- Findmypast
- References
Annelies van den belt dc thomson family history at startup grind toronto
History
The company began as a branch of the Thomson family business when William Thomson became the sole proprietor of Charles Alexander & Company, publishers of Dundee Courier and Daily Argus. In 1884, David Coupar 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 ('jam, jute and journalism'). Thomson was notable for his conservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction of trade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employ Catholics. 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.'
The company produces more than 200 million comics, magazines, and newspapers every year from offices in Dundee, Glasgow, Manchester, and London. 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.
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 tower extension was added in 1960, the architect T Lindsay Grey kept the same style.
In 2009 DC Thomson acquired the magazine company This England Publishing, which included This England magazine and Evergreen quarterly magazine. There were nine job losses in 2013 with the editorial team remaining but relocating in Cheltenham. In the same year DC Thomson acquired the Friends Reunited website from ITV for £25.6m, but by 2011 was valued at £5.2m.
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.
Publications
D.C. Thomson publications include:
Brightsolid
Brightsolid is a data centre and cloud-based hosting company based in Dundee. It was established in 1995 as Scotland Online and in 2008 became Brightsolid, organised into two companies: Brightsolid Online Publishing (BSOP) and Brightsolid Online Technology (BSOT). Brightsolid online publishing (BSOP) was subsequently renamed DC Thomson Family History in October 2013.
Findmypast
The Findmypast group (formerly DC Thomson Family History) owns a variety of large genealogy sites worldwide, including Findmypast, Genes Reunited, Mocavo and Friends Reunited. Following the split of Brightsolid in 2013, Annelies van den Belt was appointed chief executive.
The company has contracts to digitise archives for the Imperial War Museum and the British Library, where it is making the British Newspaper Archive searchable.