D. C. Thomson & Company, Limited, is a Dundee-based publishing company best known for producing The Dundee Courier, The Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy, and Commando comics. It also owns Parragon and the Aberdeen Journals Group which publishes the Press and Journal. It was a significant shareholder in the former ITV company Southern Television. Through its subsidiary DC Thompson Family History the company owns several websites including Friends Reunited and Findmypast. The company also owns children books publisher Parragon.
The company
The company began as a branch of the Thomson family business when William Thomson became the sole proprietor of Charles Alexander & Company, publishers of Dundee Courier and Daily Argus. In 1884, David Coupar Thomson took over the publishing business, and established it as D.C. Thomson in 1905. The firm flourished, and took its place as the third J in the "Three Js", the traditional summary of Dundee industry ('jam, jute and journalism'). Thomson was notable for his conservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction of trade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employ Catholics.
The company produces more than 200 million comics, magazines, and newspapers every year from offices in Dundee, Glasgow, Manchester, and London. In June 2010, 350 jobs at D.C. Thomson were made redundant with the closure of the West Ward Printworks in Dundee, along with a section of the Kingsway Print Plant.
Although the principal offices are now located outside Dundee city centre at Kingsway, the Courier Building at Meadowside has been retained as the company headquarters. This 1902 building was designed to resemble an American red stone, steel reinforced office block. When a tower extension was added in 1960, the architect T Lindsay Grey kept the same style.
In 2009 D.C. Thomson & Company acquired the magazine company This England Publishing, which included This England magazine and Evergreen quarterly magazine. There were nine job losses in 2013 with the editorial team remaining but relocating in Cheltenham. In the same year D.C. Thomson acquired the Friends Reunited website from ITV for GB£25.6m, but by 2011was valued at GB£5.2m.
As of December 2013, the company employed around 1,900 workers.
Publications
D.C. Thomson publications include:
- Sunday Post
- The Courier
- The Evening Telegraph
- My Weekly
- The Scots Magazine
- The Beano
- The Dandy
- Commando
- Jackie
- Shout
- Animals and You
