Mail chief says Brexit was bad for advertising

Chief revenue officer at Mail Metro Media admits his conclusion is ironic

The UK’s departure from the EU continues to have ramifications (PA)

The Mail’s chief revenue officer has said Brexit was bad for advertising – even though the brand has been one of the most vociferous backers of quitting the EU.

Dominic Williams, a senior figure at Mail Metro Media, which also includes The Mail on Sunday and Metro newspapers, said leaving the EU was “definitely having an effect on advertising spend, because of the UK economy”.

“At the moment, it’s tough out there,” he told The Media Leader website. “Really tough.”

Admitting his conclusion was ironic given the Mail’s stance, he added: “We’ve had quite a tough time in the world. In the UK, we had Brexit, and then we had the pandemic, and then we had Ukraine and cost-of-living.

“I mean, there are four big things there. And it has affected advertising budgets. Not just us, everyone.”

According to a study by the University of Oxford and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism carried out before the 2016 Brexit referendum, the Daily Mail published the most pro-Leave articles in the run-up to the vote of any UK news outlet.

Articles in the Daily Mail, then edited by Paul Dacre, were more focused on migration than the economy, the researchers said.

Brexit, which came into effect on 31 January 2020, had a negative impact not just on the economy, but on Mail Metro Media specifically, Mr Williams said.

A Mail front page that attacked a High Court ruling on Brexit received more than 1,000 formal complaints, newspaper watchdog IPSO said.

It used the headline “Enemies of the people”, to report on how three judges had ruled Parliament had to be consulted before the government could start the formal process of EU withdrawal.

The criticisms of the EU continued from the Mail and Mail on Sunday, with stories such as “It’s potty for Europe to blame all our supply woes on Brexit” and “Doom-mongering Remoaners were wrong to blame economic woes on Brexit, report finds”.

Just last month, Mail Online ran a comment piece by Andrew Neil headlined “Brexit could still transform Britain but neither Rishi Sunak nor Keir Starmer is a true believer”.