Before meeting you at our annual one-day festival at the Centquatre cultural centre in Paris (admission is free, see the programme here) on March 16th, the precise date of our anniversary, Mediapart announced on March 14th the appointment of journalist Carine Fouteau as our new president and publishing editor.
This orderly transmission is an illustration of the fine health of our publication. Since 2011, for 13 consecutive years, Mediapart has shown positive and profitable results which confirm the solidity of its economic model, founded uniquely on the support and loyalty of its readers – 98% of our income comes from subscriptions.
As we like to repeat, “only our readers can buy us”! We have no advertisers, no benefactor, no shareholders and receive no subsidies, an exception that guarantees our total independence. In accordance with our commitments since 2010, we neither seek nor receive any subsidies, whether these be from public or private funds. Unlike our competitors, our results are free of book-keeping artifice, confidential commercial deals, and public or private aid.
Today we have just more than 220,000 subscribers, with the first months of 2024 showing a continuing progression: on December 31st 2023, we had reached 219,968 subscribers (compared with 210,589 at the end of 2022). Our yearly turnover has also risen, amounting to 22,445,900 euros in 2023, compared with 21,234,367 euros in 2022. Current earnings in 2023 were at 3,442,776 euros, and net earnings totalled 2,263,383 euros.
Agrandissement : Illustration 2
Above: the progression of subscriber numbers since 2008. On December 31st 2023, the number of subscribers to Mediapart totalled 219,968.
Agrandissement : Illustration 3
The progression of net earnings (after tax) since 2008 (for the years 2014 and 2015, Mediapart set aside a sum of 4.7 million euros for the settlement of a dispute over VAT rates). In 2023, net earnings totalled 2,263,383 euros.
Agrandissement : Illustration 4
Above : Current earnings since 2008. In 2023, current earnings totalled 3,442,776 euros.
Mediapart has no debts. The loan taken out for the process of ring-fencing our capital within a not-for-profit structure, the Fonds pour une presse libre (Fund for a free press), via the Société pour la protection de l’indépendance de Mediapart (Spim), was entirely paid back in 2023.
In order to consolidate Mediapart’s financial independence for the future, we have decided to begin building up reserves by placing within the Spim a substantial part of our profits – 1 million euros out of the 2.2 million euros of net earnings in 2023, representing 45% of the latter.
As we do every year, Mediapart has published a booklet which contains all the up-to-date information about the progress of Mediapart, including its new editorial developments, its citizen initiatives, its economic results and also its social policies, payroll, its staff and contributors, its audience and its publications, etc.
Seize ans d'indépendanceIn her introduction to the booklet, Carine Fouteau writes: “Following in the steps of the founders, we will continue the adventure in our own manner, that of a new generation, led by women, and a diverse and plural team, who seek above all the truth behind events, and who resolutely take forward the commitments of a journal that both disturbs the status quo and brings people together.”
There is no greater joy than that of transmitting, and that is therefore the sentiment that fills me in now passing the relay to Carine. I do so with the certainty that the generation which now holds the reins to Mediapart will know very well how to “astound catastrophe by how little it makes us afraid” – to cite Victor Hugo, from his work Les Misérables, on the subject of his fictional urchin character Gavroche, a figure of eternal youth and hope.