> Is there a single web magazine making big bucks? The Spectator has been growing both in print and online. The editor wrote about this, in the wake of the tit

> Is there a single web magazine making big bucks? The Spectator has been growing both in print and online. The editor wrote about this, in the wake of the title's sale, this week: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectators-new-owner-and-new-era/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectators-new-owner... > In this trade, there is always pressure to go for the digital ‘quick wins’ (clickbait articles, advertorials, etc.) but we rejected this as a false economy – so commercial that it’s uncommercial. It would take us downmarket, deform our character and, ergo, reduce the company’s value. So we went the other way, using our success to double down on the magazine’s finest traditions in the belief that quality of writing matters above all. We did a lot that went against the conventional digital wisdom. We put together a different business model and a unique way of working, based on close collaboration between all departments and journalists equally comfortable with print, digital and broadcast. > When other publications were shedding sub-editors, we poached the best ones we could find. When newspapers shrank their books sections, we proudly kept Sam Leith’s at ten-plus pages and gave him a podcast. We created a research team who apply perhaps the most robust pre-publication scrutiny on Fleet Street (mindful that it matters more than ever that readers can trust the facts they read). When other weeklies started cutting costs by not printing over Easter and the summer, we put more effort than ever into the issues released in those holiday periods. > The digital temptations that can lure publications to their grave (‘The world has changed! Look at the clicks! Drop the opera review!’) are dangerous as they come dripping in what looks like supportive data. You can end up not just being edited by algorithm but stripping a publication of nuance, variety and soul. Our belief was that if we innovated, and used the proceeds to double or treble down on what makes The Spectator different, we would maximise the value of the company as well as serve our readers. Much of what we did could be seen as uneconomic on an individual basis – but put it all together and you get a five times valuation uplift.