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Ownership & Funding

Ownership

One independent operator owns THUNDER TIGER, pays for it and decides how it is run. There is no group above it, no chain it belongs to and no network it syndicates into. No outside investor holds a stake. No parent company exists. Nobody holds equity or a partnership interest without also being involved in the day to day running of the publication.

Nor does any share of it sit with a state body, a political party, a campaign, a candidate, a union, a trade association or a religious organisation. It sits with none of the industries we write about either, which excludes studios, publishers, manufacturers, clubs, governing bodies, banks, funds, carriers and tour operators.

Owner and operator being the same person has one useful consequence. There is no proprietor whose preferences have to be managed and nobody else to point at afterwards. Anything published here that should not have been was published by the person who owns the place.

The details this page deliberately omits

You will not find the operator’s name, a company number, the governing jurisdiction or a street address written out below. Blocks of exactly that information get harvested and recycled into attempts to pass fake sites off as real news publications, and a page that lays them out tidily makes the job easier for whoever is doing it.

Legitimate need is a different matter, and the details are supplied on request in writing. Serving process, verifying us for a press body or a transparency register, and due diligence by a prospective advertiser all qualify. Write to support@thundertiger-europe.com. Our terms of service take the same approach to naming the governing jurisdiction.

Revenue we refuse

No public authority anywhere funds any part of this site. That bar covers state advertising, tourism promotion and public information campaigns booked with us directly, and it does not soften for a government we happen to think well of. Political organisations fund nothing here either, whether the money would arrive from a party, a campaign, a candidate or an intermediary acting for one. Political creative that hides its funder is refused wherever it originates and whatever the rate.

Organisations we cover pay us nothing, in cash or in kind, in return for anything at all. Where one lends a device, a car, a code, a screening or a trip so that a piece can be written, the loan appears in the piece itself, under the rules on our editorial standards page.

Revenue we do take

Display advertising is the entire business model. Banner inventory is filled by the Adsterra advertising network, which finds the buyers, delivers the creative, counts the impressions and passes on a share of the proceeds. There is no second revenue stream sitting quietly behind it.

Nothing inside an article is purchasable. Not a sponsored piece, not a link, not a guest post, not a mention, not a placement, not an edit to something already published. Approaches offering to buy those things arrive most weeks and get one answer. Affiliate links do not appear on this site and no shop exists; were that to change, every such link would be marked in the article carrying it and the arrangement would be described here before the first one went live.

Readers pay nothing. There is no paywall, no membership and no subscription tier. Syndication and licensing bring in nothing worth calling revenue. Where advertising falls short of what running the site costs, the operator absorbs the difference personally. Any change to that mix appears on this page before it takes effect.

How the money is kept out of the reporting

A small operation cannot separate commerce from journalism with architecture, so it separates them with rules. There are five and none of them flexes.

  • Inventory is filled programmatically, so neither we nor any buyer decides which brand lands beside which article.
  • Nobody buying space is briefed on what the newsroom is working on.
  • No advertiser reads anything before publication, whether or not the article concerns them.
  • No article is ordered up, rewritten, held back or dropped on account of an advertiser, and no such assurance has ever been offered to one.
  • Commercial correspondence is kept away from editorial correspondence, and nothing said in a sales exchange travels to the people writing.

A company whose banner has appeared here and later becomes the subject of an article gets exactly the treatment any other company would get. Because nothing is sold directly, there is no commercial relationship to declare inside a story. Should direct sales ever start, any relationship capable of mattering to a reader would be declared where the reader could see it.

Grants, and the people who write here

No grant money supports this site at present. A grant from a foundation backing independent journalism would be considered on two conditions: the funder gets no voice whatsoever in coverage, and the amount and purpose appear on this page. Money from any body whose activities our desks report on would be declined, and that includes the charitable arms of corporations, leagues, studios and states, which are funded from the same budgets for the same reasons.

Writers and editors are paid by the operator. Freelance work is commissioned at a rate settled before anybody starts writing. Nobody writing here draws income from a subject of their own coverage, and every contributor declares connections before taking a story on, including holdings, former employers, memberships and advisory positions.

What triggers an update to this page

This page gets revised, with dates, on any of the following: a change of ownership, an outside investor acquiring a stake, the acceptance of grant money, the acceptance of state or political money, the start of direct advertising sales, the introduction of sponsored material or affiliate links, or the appearance of a revenue category not described above. Readers should hear about our finances from us rather than discovering them somewhere else.

Questions are welcome from anybody: readers, researchers, regulators, press organisations, prospective buyers of advertising. Send them to the address above. They get answered, and anything touching registered details or governing law gets answered in writing. What is and is not for sale is set out on our advertise page, and the thinking behind the whole arrangement is on our about page.