Under the headline “Guardian Media Group makes record revenues for news business” the Guardian reports that everything is tickety-boo at GMG plc, with total revenues reaching £264 million – which includes a staggering £82 million from 1 million paying supporters who respond to their begging pleas. Makes Guido think he is perhaps being too proud in resisting begging for donations from readers…

Away from the puff prose, the bottom line is that the paper lost £47.5 million before tax – a handy £31.8 million tax credit reduced that to a mere £15.7 million. The Scott Trust endowment of £1.2 billion, invested in such things as hedge funds and private equity, covered the shortfall.  A note to the accounts emphasises – perhaps because of past highlighting by Guido – that the unnamed funds and fund managers are all UK tax residents.

Despite the paper losing money, editor Katharine Viner’s salary rose 3.5% from £509,850 to £527,694 – something the Guardian’s media editor Jim Waterson wisely failed to report. The extra 18 grand should cover a summer holiday in Tuscany… cheers!