Journal Media records €846,000 loss for 2014

Journal Media Limited, the company behind news app TheJournal.ie, made a loss of €846,000 in 2014, according to accounts recently filed to the Companies Office.

The digital publishing group, set up by brothers Eamonn and Brian Fallon, has a deficit of €4.1 million on its balance sheet, the abridged accounts show.

Journal Media’s parent company, DML Capital Limited, made a profit of €650,000 last year, separate accounts show, and it has shareholders’ funds of €20.7 million.

The Fallons, who founded the profitable property portal Daft.ie in 1997, continue to invest in the five-year-old TheJournal.ie and its offshoots, expanding its workforce and rebranding its sports app. A product aimed at the business audience is expected to be launched next year.

Brian Fallon, who served as chief executive of Journal Media until recently, previously indicated the publisher had a turnover of about €3 million in 2014.

The company was set up in 2010 to cater for a younger audience keen on consuming news on their smartphones, which were then relatively new to the market.

In 2012, the publisher went “mobile-first”, prioritising its apps above its desktop website. It now collects a significant chunk of its revenue from native advertising, which is the term given to online advertorial or sponsored content.

The Dublin-based company is not connected to the US newspaper publisher Journal Media Group.

DML subsidiary Distilled Media Group, which relates to the Daft.ie mainstay of the Fallon business, announced in July that it was merging Daft.ie and online marketplace Adverts.ie with Schibsted Media's DoneDeal.ie in a new company called Digital Media Ventures Ltd.