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Revenue at Reach fell 2.3%, operating profit down 27.4%
Revenue at Reach, the UK’s biggest news group, fell 2.3% to £601.4m in 2022, with operating profit plummeting 27.4% to £106.1m. The group publishes more than 200 regional and national news brands including: The Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, Express titles, Mirror titles and Daily Star.
Digital revenue was up 1% for the year, but fell 5.9% in the final quarter as the cost of living crisis began to bite. Unsurprisingly, print fared worse; total print revenues were down 3.5%, advertising was off by 15.9%, and copy sales down 1.7%. Print earnings are still almost three times more than digital.
Chief executive Jim Mullen said: “Our award-winning journalism and continued strategic investment is supporting a growing base of engaged and active customers.” Meanwhile, Reach said it plans to cut operating costs by between 5% and 6% this year meaning more redundancies on top of the 200 proposed job cuts announced in January.
Report spotlights young Americans who pay for news
Central to the future of news funding is understanding the behavior of the next generation of news audiences, a group that many legacy news organizations have found elusive: Millennials and Gen Z. This report from the American Press Institute looks at who among 16 to 40 year olds in the US will pay for or donate to news. It also examines how these payers or donors get news, and what topics or interests drive that behavior.
Substack can grow into its $650 million valuation
Writing in his A Media Operator newsletter, Jacob Donnelly is more bullish than he has been in a long time about the financial outlook for Substack. When the newsletter platform failed to raise money on a prospective $1 billion valuation, people questioned whether it was even worth its existing $650 million valuation. Now, after hitting 2 million paying subscribers and ramping up its creator support, Jacob has revised his previously negative outlook on the brand.
Talent agency Endeavor has invested in Musk’s Twitter
So, either a fool and his money are easily parted or Ari Emanuel knows something we don’t. Less that 48 hours after Elon Musk’s Twitter suffered its biggest outage, Axios has revealed that his talent and events business Endeavor has invested in the beleaguered social media platform. Endeavor’s clients include some of the world’s largest media, entertainment and sports stars, and the investment maybe underlines just how much those people still rely on the platform to reach their fans.
This content originally appeared in The Media Roundup, a daily newsletter from Media Voices. Subscribe here:
