The Guardian records first operating profit since 1998

The Guardian recorded an operating profit of £0.8m for 2018-19: its first such profit in two decades and the culmination of one of the most significant turnarounds in recent British media history.

The margin is vindication of the strategy pursued by Chief Executive David Pemsel and Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner since their appointments in 2015, BBC News reports.

It has been registered despite both the structural challenges facing newspapers and websites, and the culture of financial profligacy and massive losses tolerated at The Guardian for decades.

However, the operating profit excludes cash payments of between £25-30m for capital costs and other business expenditures, which are an annual draw-down from the Scott Trust, of which The Guardian is part. If these annual costs were included, The Guardian would still be loss-making.

Nevertheless, the operating profit marks the completion of a three-year plan that few observers thought likely to succeed, and which leant heavily on a - for British media at least - eccentric business decision to ask readers to contribute financially for something they could get for free.