Satirical news website The Daily Mash has been snapped up by the owner of Entertainment Daily for £1.2m.

The company has been bought by Digitalbox Publishing from its journalist founders Neil Rafferty and Paul Stokes in a cash and shares deal.

The Daily Mash, which generates its income from advertising, saw sales of £396,000 and profit before tax of £135,000 last year.

It also has a TV spin-off, The Mash Report, broadcast on BBC2.

Mr Rafferty said: "This is a great opportunity for the Mash to build on what we have created so far.


"My co-founder, Paul Stokes, did an incredible job building a profitable business from the ground up.

"Being part of Digitalbox and accessing their commercial and technical expertise, means we can keep building, while our fantastic team of writers continue to produce great content every day."

James Carter, Digitalbox chief executive, said: "Through our success with Entertainment Daily, we have a platform through which we can drive traffic and advertising revenue.

"The platform is scalable and we intend to add new titles to it."