DC Thomson

DC Thomson is a Scottish 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 the Aberdeen Journals Group which publishes the Press and Journal. It was a significant shareholder in the former ITV company Southern Television.

DC Thomson & Company, Limited
Private
IndustryPublishing
Founded1905 (1905)
FounderDavid Couper Thomson
HeadquartersDundee, Scotland, UK
Key people
Andrew F Thomson (Chairman)

David Thomson (Director & COO) Christopher HW Thomson (Deputy Chairman)

Richard Hall (Director)
ProductsSunday Post, The Evening Telegraph
My Weekly, Jackie, Shout
The Beano, The Dandy, Commando
See also: list of DC Thomson Publications
Revenue£245 million (2016)[1]
£30.06 million (2016)[1]
Total assets£1.404 billion (2016)[1]
Number of employees
2,148 (2016)[1]
SubsidiariesDC Thomson Media,

DC Thomson Ventures, Brightsolid, Findmypast, Beano Studios, Shortlist Media, Puzzler Media, Wild & Wolf, Wave FM,

Fifth Ring
Websitewww.dcthomson.co.uk
The tower extension to DC Thomson as seen from The Howff, Dundee

Through its subsidiary DC Thomson Family History the company owns several websites including the now defunct social media site Friends Reunited[2] and Findmypast. They are based in Dundee, Scotland.

History
Dundee Headquarters of DC Thomson & Co.

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 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 ('jam, jute and journalism').[3]

Thomson was notable for his conservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction of trade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employ Catholics.[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]

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. The building underwent extensive renovation and reopened to employees in 2017. More than 650 employees now work in the Meadowside headquarters in Dundee's city centre.

In 2009 DC Thomson acquired the magazine company This England Publishing, which included This England magazine and Evergreen quarterly magazine. In the same year DC Thomson acquired the Friends Reunited website from ITV for £25.6m, but by 2011 was valued at £5.2m and was eventually shut down completely in February 2016.[6] In 2013 there were nine job losses at This England Publishing with the editorial team remaining but relocating in Cheltenham.

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][7]

East Kingsway printing works and offices

Publications
For a complete list, see List of D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd publications.

D.C. Thomson publications include:

Subsidiaries

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.[8]

Findmypast

The Findmypast group (formerly DC Thomson Family History) owns a variety of large genealogy sites worldwide, including Findmypast, Genes Reunited and Mocavo.[9] Following the split of Brightsolid in 2013, Annelies van den Belt was appointed chief executive.[10]

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.

Further reading
  • Joseph McAleer, Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain: 1914–1950, Oxford University Press, 1992. Includes a chapter on D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.

See also

References
  1. "D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  2. "brightsolid acquires Friends Reunited". Brightsolid.com. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
  3. "Victorian Dundee: Jute, Jam & Journalism". Scottish History. BBC. Retrieved 2 October 2007.
  4. "Gazetteer for Scotland: David Couper Thomson".
  5. MacKenzie, John M. (1984). Propaganda and Empire: the manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. p. 219. ISBN 0719018692.
  6. "DC Thomson's Friends Reunited continues fall in value". BBC News. 11 December 2011. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  7. "Publisher DC Thomson posts 20% rise in profits". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  8. "The Future for Family History is Digital". DC Thomson Family History. 1 October 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  9. "Shake-up at online firm brightsolid". BBC News. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  10. "Digital media executive Annelies van den Belt joins in brightsolid reorganisation". The Courier. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
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