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2012 "Sun" front pages
Photo: LEON NEAL / AFP
For decades "The Sun" was one of the most widely read newspapers in Great Britain.
The tabloid reaches more than two million people on paper every day, allegedly over 130 million people on the net every month.
Readers love the sensational, often sensation-seeking headlines.
The influential in politics and business also fear the campaigns.
A money printing machine for owner Rupert Murdoch, one of the richest and most powerful media entrepreneurs in the world, who also owns the right-wing US television broadcaster Fox.
And now all this shouldn't be worth anything anymore?
At least that is evident from the balance sheet documents published by the owner News Group.
Accordingly, Murdoch has set the balance sheet value of the »Sun« newspapers to zero.
The Guardian and the New York Times reported on it first.
The reason for the sudden write-off is apparently also losses that started in the Corona crisis.
Accordingly, the News Group, to which the "Sun" belongs, tripled its pre-tax loss to over 200 million pounds in the past fiscal year, which ended in June 2020.
The result fell by 23 percent, for example due to falling sales and advertising revenues.
The majority of the minus, however, around 80 percent, has to do with the 15-year-old wiretapping scandal.
For years, Murdoch's journalists had taped the phones of thousands of politicians, celebrities and even members of the royal family.
So far Murdoch denies that the "Sun" should have been involved in these practices.
In the balance sheet, however, there are now 164 million pounds, which, according to the Guardian, are declared as “one-off payments” in connection with the wiretapping scandal, including 52 million alone for fees and reparations to civilian victims.
But the former MP and Liberal Democrat Simon Huges was only awarded a "substantial sum" last week, according to the Guardian.
His phone calls were hacked in 2006.
The "Sun" then ran a cover story in which they outed him as homosexual.
According to his own statement, Huges is bi.
Exactly how much money he received from the "Sun" was not reported.
The end of the "Sun"?
The company was exposed to defamation lawsuits in the normal course of business and was defending itself vigorously, the News Group told the Guardian likely to be considered. "
Murdoch, however, does not appear to believe in a quick recovery in business.
Instead, the annual report predicts a further decline in sales for the coming years.
The "depreciation of the publishing rights" in the amount of 84 million pounds probably means that he does not assume that he will ever be able to lead the titles to profitable growth again.
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