Ownership & Funding

Who owns Cumbernauld Media

Cumbernauld Media is owned and operated by a single independent operator, who funds it and runs it. It is not part of any media group, chain or network. It has no outside investors, no parent corporation and no shareholder or partner who is not involved in running the site. It is not owned, wholly or in part, by any government body, political party, campaign, candidate, union, trade association or religious organisation, or by any business with interests in the sectors we cover, whether that is a club, a league, a studio, a label, a manufacturer, an airline, a bank, a fund or a technology company.

We do not publish the operator’s name, company registration details or a street address on this page, because that information gets scraped and reused in attempts to impersonate news organisations to their readers. If you have a legitimate need for it, such as serving legal process, verifying us for a press or transparency body, or evaluating us as an advertiser, write to support@cumbernauld-media.com and we will confirm the governing law and registered details in writing.

Because the owner is the person who runs the publication, there is no proprietor to satisfy and no one else to blame. If this site publishes something it should not have, the person who owns it published it.

No money from governments, parties or the industries we cover

We accept no money from any government or public body in any country, including government advertising and public information campaigns. We accept no grants from political organisations and no money from any party, campaign, candidate or organisation acting for one. We accept no money, equipment, credits, tickets, travel, hosting or other consideration from the organisations we cover in exchange for anything, and where an organisation loans us a product or hosts a visit for review, the loan or the hosting is disclosed in the piece.

Political advertising that conceals who is paying for it is turned away, whatever country it comes from. We would rather lose the revenue than let our pages become a channel for undisclosed spending.

Where the money comes from

Display advertising is the source of our revenue, and at present all of it. Banner units on the site are filled through the Adsterra advertising network, which sells the space, serves the creative and pays us a share of what it earns. We do not sell sponsored posts. We do not sell link insertions, guest posts, brand mentions or placements in stories, and the many emails we receive offering to buy them all get the same answer. We run no affiliate links; if we ever introduce them, they will be marked in the stories where they appear and described on this page before the first one runs.

There is no paywall, no subscription and no reader payment of any kind. We have no syndication or licensing revenue of any significance. The operator covers any shortfall between advertising revenue and costs personally. If the mix changes, this page changes before the money is spent.

How advertising is kept away from coverage

We are a small operation, so the separation between revenue and journalism is a matter of rules rather than separate buildings. The rules are few and they are absolute. Because banners are filled by a network, we do not choose which advertiser appears next to which story and advertisers do not choose either. No advertiser is told what stories are coming. No advertiser sees a story before publication or is offered the chance to comment on one that is not about them. No story is commissioned, altered, delayed or killed because of an advertiser, and no advertiser has ever been promised otherwise.

If a company whose banner has appeared on the site becomes the subject of a story, the story is reported as any other would be. Because we do not sell direct placements, there is no relationship to disclose; if that ever changes, the relationship will be disclosed in the story where it is relevant to the reader.

Grants and other support

We receive no grant funding. We would consider grants from foundations that support independent journalism, on the condition that the funder has no say over coverage and that the grant, its amount and its purpose are disclosed here. We would not accept funding from any organisation whose activities the desks cover, including the philanthropic arms of companies, leagues, studios and financial firms.

Staff and contributors

Editors and writers are paid by the operator. Freelance contributors are paid per piece at a rate agreed before they start. Nobody who writes for us is paid by a subject of their coverage, and contributors disclose any connection to a subject, including holdings, prior employment, club ties and advisory roles, to an editor before taking on a story, as the editorial standards require.

What we will disclose

If the ownership of Cumbernauld Media changes, if an outside investor takes a stake, if we accept grant funding, if we take government or political money of any kind, if we begin selling advertising directly, sponsored posts, link insertions, guest posts or affiliate links, or if a new category of revenue appears, this page will say so, with dates. We would rather readers learn about our finances from us than discover them.

Questions

Questions about ownership or funding, from readers, researchers, regulators and prospective advertisers, go to support@cumbernauld-media.com. We answer them.

Last updated: September 2026