Press Gazette has updated its ranking of leading subscription newsbrands with the highest ratio of digital subscribers to online audience.

Topping the list of brands included in our analysis once again are The Athletic and News Corp financial title Barron’s, which both had conversion rates of above or close to 20% – well above most industry benchmarks.

Monthly unique global visitors to The Athletic’s desktop and mobile websites averaged 11.2 million in the 12 months between June 2023 and May 2024 according to digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. This is stacked up against its 2.9 million subscribers as of March 2024.

Barron’s averaged 4.8 million monthly visitors in the last year compared to its 900,000 subscribers.

They were followed by Wall Street Journal with 24.7 million monthly visitors, 2.7 million subscribers, giving it a conversion rate of 15%.

As with the first time we created this ranking in April last year, we looked at single newsbrands (i.e. not publishing houses) included as part of our 100k Club digital subscriptions ranking. We also used publisher membership organisation FIPP’s digital subscriptions snapshot from the last quarter of 2023 to identify well-known non-English language newsbrands.

We focused on newsbrands with at least or close to 100,000 subscribers that had data available from 2023 or later. This gave us an additional 17 news titles to add to our list from countries including Spain, France, Germany and Norway.

Note on workings: As publishers are not tied to one standard as to how they report digital subscribers (some may include subscribers with access to other products such as print products or e-paper subscriptions), our figures should be taken as a ballpark. Some publishers may also report subscribers on free trials or deeply discounted rates. Our ranking is designed to give a snapshot of how some of the biggest names in reader revenue are faring in converting their audiences to paying consumers.

There’s no one set way to calculate the ratio of subscribers to online reach, often called the “conversion rate”. Some publishers look at conversion of unique visitors to their digital properties; others prefer to look at conversion as a percentage of the sessions they have on their site, while some also take into account the percentage of the population in their region, which is how newspapers had traditionally approached this. Similarly, website traffic can vary between measurement standards such as Google Analytics, Similarweb and other providers.

[Download’s Press Gazette’s Ultimate Guide to Acquisition, Conversion and Monetisation for Publishers]

To calculate the subscription conversion rate, for each title we divided its latest subscriber number based on publicly available data or information shared with Press Gazette and divided this by their monthly average global mobile and desktop web visitors over the last year.

Since a large part of our list is based on members of our 100k Club which by definition have at least 100,000 digital subscribers as well as the better-performing overseas brands tracked by FIPP, naturally our list will capture newsbrands that have successful digital subscriptions strategies and will likely have a good ratio of digital subscribers to web visitors. It is also worth considering that while benchmarking against other publishers is useful, conversion rates vary based on things such as target market size, audience size, and how long the paywall has been in place.

According to research among 166 publishers by the International News Media Association (INMA) at the end of 2022, the median publisher had a conversion rate of 0.6%, while the 25% of brands who performed best had a rate of at least 1.4% , suggesting that our list includes a number of particualrly high performers.

Greg Piechota, a researcher at INMA, says however that the last year has been positive for many newsbrands who have continued to grow both volume and revenue from digital subscriptions.

Of 238 newsbrands looked at by INMA, the median newsbrand increased its number of digital-only subscriptions by 14% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2023, while total revenue from digital-only subscriptions was up by 19.5% during the same period.

What sets apart newsbrands with higher conversion rates?

Many things factor into how successful a publisher is at converting its audience to paying readers. These include how long the publisher has had a paywall in place, as those that have had longer to build up their paywalls will likely have a better ratio. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, which are both among our ten best performers, have had paywalls in place for over a decade with the WSJ a particularly early mover having charged for its content since 1995.

They are among seven brands on our list with a conversion rate of over 10% which include five specialist titles focused on areas such as sports, consumer reviews or finance - The Athletic, Barron's, Wall Street Journal, Which, Us Weekly - as well as The Economist and Norwegian news daily Aftenposten.

Content and brand, says Piechota, is a key factor driving conversion success which can help explain the success of niche titles, particularly those focused on high-paying audiences.

"Brand preference is paramount. It is built over years of publishing distinctive journalism, providing convenient user experience, and gaining a reputation for breaking news."

But the news cycle makes a difference too: a big story can make a subscription title. INMA research comparing new paywalls launched a year before the pandemic with those launched right after the outbreak found that those that were able to take advantage of audience's eagerness for news about the pandemic did best.

"Brands that set up a paywall before Covid-19 grew five to six times faster than those that were late," says Piechota.

Katelyn Belyus, who leads strategy and analytics at audience intelligence company Piano which counts DMG Media and Fortune among its clients, says customer experience also matters.

"It's about understanding what appeals to your audience and tailoring your subscription messaging and offers accordingly, ensuring that price and terms are displayed in front of audiences who are most likely to engage and convert. By targeting the right offer to the right audience, you can optimise conversion rates further."

For people that are perhaps new to your brand, encouraging registration, she says, is key. For those that are already a little more engaged, a trial price can entice them to engage more deeply, while for those that already have the highest propensity to sign up and pay, presenting the full price ensures maximum revenue potential.

Research, she says, shows that conversion often depends on visitor loyalty and engagement. One-time visitors, those who visit once and never return, rarely convert, which is significant since about two-thirds of site visitors never return.

Direct visitors and those arriving from email campaigns, in contrast, tend to have the highest conversion rates. Engaging audiences quickly is also essential she says. Approximately 45% of people who convert do so within their first active day on a website, while another 20% convert on their second day.

What kind of paywall?

While some publishers have seen success with soft paywalls which allow readers to try some content before being asked to pay, Piechota says that fast-growing brands are those that are simply confident in asking for money. "They have tighter paywalls and expose many more users to offers than slower-growing brands," he says. This includes several newsbrands near the top of our list including the Athletic, Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal that have hard paywalls in place.

With the crisis in ad-funded news, Piechota is optimistic that reader-supported strategies can pay off. "I see no indication of the news avoidance or subscription fatigue that many editors worry about," he says. News avoiders, he says, tend to be the poorer, less educated, and less politically active groups that have long been less inclined to pay for news. "These segments are not typically prioritised in subscription marketing," he says.

Success for a number of publishers on our list has come despite steep rises in subscription costs for some of the leading names. Research by Press Gazette earlier this year found that the price of a digital news subscription had risen by 19% on average among a group of titles in the UK over the last year, which included the Financial Times, Bloomberg, the Telegraph and the Times - all newsbrands with conversion rates (based on our metric) that are higher than the median rate found by INMA.

Yet, although Piechota says brands that have opted for steep price rises have in some cases seen a slowdown in the growth in the volume of their subscriptions (although revenue might not have slowed), he believes there is still room for growth.

"A median national newsbrand reaches less than 1% of households in its market with digital-only subscriptions," he says. "Clearly, there is no ceiling. It's like standing in front of the One World Trade Center in Manhattan and mistaking the first floor for the observatory on the 100th floor. I have been there, and the difference in the perspective is significant."

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The number of people that live in countries where they are not free to express opinions and beliefs or freely access information has surged in the last year, according to a new report.

Some 4.2 billion people – over half (53%) of the global population – live in 39 countries deemed to be facing a crisis of freedom of expression, meaning that they cannot freely express their views or access information without serious consequences, according to the annual Global Expression Report from human rights NGO, Article 19.

This is higher than during any time in the current century and up from 34% of people in 2022 – driven largely by the fall of India, the world’s most populous country, into the “crisis” category in 2023.

These 4.2 billion are among more than three quarters (77%) of the world's population – more than six billion people – who live in places where freedom of expression is considered to be "in crisis", "severely restricted" or "restricted", the worst three among the five possible categories designated by Article 19.

While the annual ranking looks at how much freedom of expression everyone has in society - and not just journalists - Article 19 executive director, Quinn McKew told Press Gazette that press freedom continues to suffer around the world.

McKew said: "In the past year, 29 countries declined on the indicators relating to media freedoms, with only 12 advancing. In the past decade, the discrepancy is even starker - 94 countries have seen a decline in media freedoms, while only 29 have seen an advance.

"We know media freedom is essential for a proper functioning of democracy. Too many leaders around the world see it as a threat to their entrenched power, and authorities are determined to silence the press. We’re seeing this every day in all the corners of the world - India where prime minister Modi and his followers routinely harass the media, particularly female journalists, force online platforms to block independent media content or even jail journalists too critical of the current regime; in Argentina where Javier Milei shut down the country’s biggest news agency; or in Tunisia, where a number of journalists have been detained in the latest wave of arrests of civil society, political opposition and the media.

"Even in the European Union, press freedom comes under attack: most recently in Italy, where Georgia Meloni attempts to turn the public broadcaster into a mouthpiece of her government."

Over the past decade, freedom of expression has deteriorated sharply. Some 6.2 billion people in 78 countries - over 80% of the global population - are less free to express their views and opinions now than ten years ago. In contrast, just one in 25 - or 303 million - people live in countries where the expression environment has improved since 2013. As a consequence, only one in four (23%) people today live in countries rated by Article 19 as "open" or "less restricted" - the highest among their five categories.

On a country-by-country level, the picture is similar. In 2023, just eight countries were considered to be "open" or "less restricted", down from 13 ten years ago.

Alongside a critical decline in media freedom, India is one of the countries that has seen the biggest declines in freedom of expression overall in the past decade. Its expression score (where 100 is the best score a country can be awarded) has plummeted 35 points since 2014 when current hardline Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi took office, forcing the country from the "severely restricted" to "crisis" category.

India is among nine countries including Ethiopia, Ecuador and Moldova that fell into a worse freedom of expression category in the last year,

McKew said: "This year’s Global Expression Report sounds a very loud alarm bell. At no point in the last 20 years have so many people been denied the benefits of open societies, like the ability to voice opinions, access a free media or participate in free and open elections.

"India’s decline has happened in plain sight, yet it’s a story not many want to talk about. The data is clear - the first signs of an erosion of democracy come from attacks on expression. Given that India touts itself as the ‘world’s largest democracy’, the silencing of voices should be of major global concern.

"But violations of freedoms happen every day and around the world, as leaders degrade our freedoms one by one. Many do so through subtle policy changes presented in the name of ‘public safety’, 'morality’ or ‘national security’ - tightening the net until there is no room left to breathe.

Five countries improve their category

While the general trajectory has been towards deterioration, Brazil is among five countries that bucked the downward trend. Following former Prime Minister Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in 2022, Brazil’s expression score increased by 26 points in the last year, bringing the country back into "open" category. The country had dropped into the "restricted" category in 2019, following Bolsonaro’s victory. Among the improvements seen in Brazil in the last year according to Article 19 has been less harassment of journalists.

UK freedom of expression: worse than its peers

Despite ranking as "open", the UK (rank 33) is below Belgium (4), Ireland (8), Germany (9) and France (22). It is one of several non-authoritarian states that has taken a hit to its freedom of expression in recent years, having lost seven expression points since 2000, declining from a score of 88 to 81 over this period. Last year McKew told Press Gazette that the 'war on woke', curbs on the rights to protest, and the push to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights as among negative developments pushing down the UK's score.

On press freedom, McKew said this year that the UK's anti-SLAPP bill was a "positive" development. The bill intended to protect those who speak out on matters of public interest against lawsuits meant to silence has government support and is currently working its way into legislation. She added however that "more needs to be done to strengthen it to ensure that it lives up to its promise of protecting journalists against vexatious lawsuits."

She added: "This year, we’ve seen worrying signs of authoritarian regimes being increasingly emboldened to target journalists outside of their borders - the attack on Pouria Zeraati, journalist at Iran International, was a shocking reminder of that.

"The UK government must take those attacks seriously and do more to help ensure that journalists in exile can still consider the UK a safe-haven where they can continue their important work.

"The ongoing imprisonment of Julian Assange is also an affront to press freedom in the UK - though [Monday's] court decision to grant him a right to appeal is a step in the positive direction."

Threat to press freedom in conflict contexts

Russia was among the countries singled out in the report last year for a serious decline in freedom of expression as the government forced hundreds of Russia journalists into exile amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russia which remains in the crisis category saw a further deterioration in its score this year, falling from seven points in 2022 to four in 2023 as the conflict continues to stifle freedom of expression in and outside the country.

"Two years on, Putin’s regime continues to threaten and undermine those operating outside of Russia, while targeting those still in the country, persecuting voices critical of the war under spurious charges of ‘extremism’ or spreading ‘fake news’ about Russia's military," said McKew. "A bigger problem is the continued corrosive influence of Russia outside Russia as a key part of its war on western democracy. For example, the recent “foreign agent” legislation in Georgia took a page directly from the Kremlin."

Elsewhere, wars such as the ongoing conflict in Gaza have also led to attacks on freedom of the media. At least 105 journalists and media workers have been killed so far in the conflict which began on 7 October last year. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the conflict was a source of 75% of all journalist deaths worldwide in 2023 and Israel is now the sixth-worst jailer of journalists in the world. While it remains in the "less restricted category", Israel's expression score has fallen from 74 in 2022 to 69 in 2023.

McKew said: "Since 7 October, Israel has critically undermined press freedom and taken actions which inhibit vital, independent reporting on the conflict. Foreign media still face severe restrictions on access to Gaza, denying their audiences access to objective information about ongoing hostilities and human rights violations. The banning of Al Jazeera, one of the only international outlets operating from inside Gaza, at the start of May was another example of Israel’s dangerous attempts to control the narrative of the war and censor essential independent reporting about it."

Sudan meanwhile, another state in conflict, languishes in the crisis category for another year, having declined from 15 to 10 points.

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Facebook referral traffic continues to plummet for news publishers as Meta’s turn away from the news industry continues.

New data shared with Press Gazette from publisher analytics firm Chartbeat and digital intelligence platform Similarweb show just how steep that fall has been.

Aggregate Facebook traffic to a group of 792 news and media sites that have been tracked by the Chartbeat since 2018 shows that referrals to the sites have plunged by 58% in the last six years from 1.3 billion in March 2018 to 561 million last month. Traffic from Facebook fell by 50% in the last 12 months alone as the decline shows little sign of slowing.

As a share of total page views coming from external, search and social, Facebook referrals are now less than a quarter of their 2018 level, down from 30% in March 2018 to 7% in March 2024.

Changes to the Google search algorithm over the last 18 months have led to falling traffic for many news publishers, with matters compounded for many by the last series of updates rolled out in March.

The UK’s biggest commercial news publisher Reach has reported page views down by a third in the first three months of 2024.

Smaller sites have particularly hard hit by Facebook changes

Last year Reach said falling referrals from Facebook (along with declining referral traffic from Google and lower yields from programmatic advertising) had contributed to a decline in its digital revenues in 2023 of 15% year-on-year.

The UK’s largest commercial newbrand, The Sun meanwhile also attributed reduced digital advertising revenue in part to the "volatility of social platforms’ approach toward news content."

The sentiment is shared more widely across the industry. Earlier this year, a survey of nine B2C publishers and four B2B publishers in the UK by the Association of Online Publishers and Deloitte found that off-platform revenues had fallen by 47% in the final quarter of 2023 with the researchers citing Facebook’s decision to deprioritise news in user feeds as a major cause.

Globally, almost two thirds (63%) of 302 worldwide respondents to a survey by the Reuters Institute for Digital Journalism meanwhile said that they were worried about the decline of referrals from Facebook and X.

Chartbeat data shows that Facebook page views to large publishers (with over 100,000 average daily page views) and medium-sized outlets (who count between 10,000 and 100,000 average daily page views) are half of their March 2018 levels.

Smaller publishers have been even harder hit. Combined page view referrals from Facebook for the 316 smaller publishers in the analysis (i.e. those with less than 10,000 average daily page views) stand at just 2% of March 2018 levels. As the chart below suggests however, this decline has been part of a more widespread fall off in page views coming from all social networks and search indicated by the fact that Facebook's share of page views from social, search and external has held up slightly better for small sites.

Reach sites hit by falling Facebook traffic

While the shuttering of Buzzfeed News and the downfall of Vice made headlines last year, data from Similarweb on Facebook referrals to individual sites indicates that both new and well-established names are finding that Meta’s turn away from news has hit their traffic.

While Similarweb data is only available for desktop - which represents a small minority of traffic for the large majority of sites - sentiment among the industry suggests these trends apply to all traffic.

Of the 58 major news sites included in our analysis, all but four saw a smaller share of social page views from Facebook in March 2024 when compared to the same month in 2021.

Youth-focused publisher Unilad maintains the highest share of social media referrals from Facebook at 45%. This however is half of the 90% of social page views for Unilad that came from Facebook three years ago. Fellow social and youth-focused publisher Upworthy similarly has seen its share of social referrals from Facebook plunge from 49% in March 2021 to 13% in March 2024. Bustle was one of the few sites in our analysis to buck the trend. The share of social referrals from Facebook to the women's publisher's site increased from 6% to 11% between 2021 and 2024.

Several legacy publishers saw large drops. The Independent saw share of social referrals from Facebook fall from 19% in 2021 to 6% in 2024. Reach's The Mirror saw its share of referrals plummet from 22% to 7%, while the fall for the Daily Star (also a Reach newsbrand) was from 25% to 5%. Page views from Facebook to mirror.co.uk fell from 2.3 million in December 2022 to 286,000 last month - a 90% drop.

In recent years, changes to Facebook's algorithm, which include a 2018 decision to prioritise content from "family and friends" in its News Feed, have hit the news industry hard. Owner Meta has additionally stopped giving grants to publishers, sharing ad revenue and in 2022 announced that it would be dropping Instant Articles which allow news links to open in a quicker-to-load, mobile-friendly format within the Facebook app.

Last month Meta announced that it would be closing Facebook’s news tab feature in Australia and would not renewing the news licensing deals it struck with Australian publishers following the introduction of the landmark News Media Bargaining Code. Similar changes have been seen in UK, France and Germany.

In response publishers have adopted various strategies, with some choosing to up their short-form video game in a bid to grow their followings on other platforms such as Tiktok while some are hoping to drive more referrals from WhatsApp and LinkedIn. Others have sought to increase direct engagement with their audiences through newsletters, subscriptions and podcasts.

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Google’s latest core algorithm update has dealt yet another blow to publishers striving to improve their search visibility. It follows a string of recent updates that have led to most news publishers to fall down the search giant’s rankings.

Data from SEO tool Sistrix shows that of 70 leading news publishers tracked by Press Gazette, based mostly on those that regularly appear in our UK top 50 ranking, all but 15 saw falls in their visibility score. Of those, almost half (33) saw declines in the double-digits.

Sistrix’s Visibility Index measures how successful a website is in Google search results, assigning higher scores to sites that rank better in search results.

One of Google's 'biggest core updates yet'

While Google core updates are nothing new and happen at least once a year, the update launched on 6 March 2024 was, according to SEO experts at Yoast, one of Google's biggest core algorithm updates yet.

It was targeted at cleaning up low-quality, often AI-generated content cluttering search results and was rolled out over a number of weeks.

Unlike the previous core update of late 2023, which particularly hit publishers with a traditional focus on scale often built with the aid of SEO-explainer-style articles, this update has negatively impacted both newer and more traditional news names.

BBC News, for example, was among the sites that saw the biggest percentage drops, with its site losing 37% of its search visibility having fallen from 24.7 to 15.4 points in a little over six weeks. Its relative decline was second only to Canada-based entertainment site, Screenrant which saw its visibility fall by 40% from 27.6 to 16.7.

Other established publishers who saw large percentage dents to their visibility were the Evening Standard (down 32% from 29.6 to 20.1), LBC (down 30% from 1.3 to 0.9) and the Daily Record (down 24% from 4.6 to 3.5 points).

According to Google the March update was designed to tackle "spam and low quality content on search" and "to reduce content created for search engines on search".

While Google says its core updates are simply designed to improve the quality of search results - the tech giant said there had been a 45% reduction in spammy content as a result of this update - news publishers can experience dramatic changes in search rankings, and a result revenue, following algorithm changes.

Reach regionals hard-hit

Among the hardest-hit news sites in this round were a number of Reach regional brands, which were similarly dealt a sharp blow in the last update of 2023.

Between 5 March and 19 April, visibility fell by 24% for the Bristol Post (from 1.02 to 0.77 points) and the Daily Record (4.61 to 3.5), by 23% for Chronicle Live (from 2.83 to 2.19), 22% at the Hull Daily Mail (from 0.55 to 0.43) and 21% at Lancashire Live (0.29 to 0.23). These sites have low visibility meaning small changes in score can have a relatively big impact.

Reach said last week (2 May) its page views in the first quarter of 2024 were down by 33% as a result of algorithm changes at Facebook and Google.

A number of large and visible sites also lost out, however. Among them were Good Housekeeping which shed almost a quarter of its visibility falling 23% from 104.2 to 80.5 points and The Independent which slumped 16%, from 143.5 to 120.3 points.

While Sistrix’s Visibility Index does not include the top stories section, a key driver of traffic to news sites, or the Google News tab, SEO expert Barry Adams has previously told Press Gazette that Sistrix data likely reflects similar changes in visibility in the top stories box.

Google core update winners

There were far fewer news and media winners in this update compared to previous ones. Just five sites in our analysis saw a visibility gain of at least 10% in the latest update, while an additional four saw an increase in visibility of at least 5%.

The biggest winner was DMGT's the i, which saw its search visibility increase by 62% from 3.1 to 5.1 points over the 45 days of the update.

Future’s Tech Radar fared second-best among the sites in our list seeing its visibility surge by 45% from 49.2 points to 71.2 points, while The Week, one of the less visible sites in our list, saw its score improve by 40% from 0.2 to 0.3. Sistrix says its visibility index is not a traffic index, but search visibility is a major driver of traffic to many news sites and The Week has had a recent run of growth in our rankings.

Other winners included Reach's Birmingham Mail, which saw its visibility increase by 15% to 2.4 points, and the Express, up 10% to 12.9 points. Other gains for sites such as at the Mirror, Forbes and Bloomberg were more modest.

GB News, which launched its dotcom URL last year and was among the biggest winners in relative terms on our list for the October 2023 update, fared much worse this time, seeing visibility in search fall 14% from 1.8 to 1.5 points. Despite this relatively low visibility score, the site has recorded consistent audience growth in Press Gazette’s top 50 audience ranking.

Overall, 13 news publishers found their search visibility either unchanged or slightly affected, an increase or decrease of less than 5%, as a result of the March update.

How UK's biggest sites fared in the March core update

In contrast to the last core update, some of the UK’s largest newsbrands by audience size and visibility saw significant percentage shifts in visibility level as a result of this update.

As well as Good Housekeeping and The Independent mentioned above, The Guardian shed 10% of its visibility score falling from 285.5 to 256.6, while Mail Online fell by 14% in search, down to 60.1 points. The New York Times fell by 8% to 70.2 points.

In the past Mail Online executives have accused Google of downgrading its stories in search in favour or more politically liberal sites such as The Guardian. This update appears to have hit sites across the political spectrum.

Aggregator Google News remained the site on our list with the largest visibility (score of 321.9), followed by The Guardian, Forbes (124.8) and The Independent (120.3).

While core updates are designed to help Google improve the quality of search results for consumers by rewarding authoritative and trustworthy content, factors internal to a publisher such as technical issues and changes to a site can also affect rankings.

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As UK media pay is again under the spotlight with STV the latest outlet to strike over salaries and National World journalists considering their new pay offer, Press Gazette has updated its ranking of the highest paid jobs in UK media.

Topping the list this time around are two of RELX’s top executives who both netted impressive paychecks in 2023. Chief executive Erik Engstrom made a total of £13.6m in the year, while chief financial officer Nick Luff made £7.1m once his fixed pay, bonuses and payouts are totalled.

The British information powerhouse, which has a well-known stable of legal and scientific brands, has seen strong success in recent years seeing its share price drive more than 100% higher over five years.

Three other information and analytics companies also made the top ten, reflecting the relatively strong performance of the sector. Fourth best-paid on our list was research and polling company Yougov’s former chief executive (now chairman) Stephan Shakespeare who made £4.7m, followed by Informa chief executive Stephen Carter (£3.8m) and Euromoney’s former CEO Andrew Rashbass (£3.5m in 2021/22, the latest figures available. He left the business in November that year).

DMGT, whose chairman and chief executive Lord Rothermere topped the ranking the last time we did this analysis in 2022 with total earnings of £10.9m in 2021, dropped to third after its highest-paid director made £6.5m in 2023. Since Rothermere took the company private in 2022, DMGT no longer has to disclose details of its directors’ remuneration beyond the total figure that was earned by the highest-paid director, who can remain unnamed.

The best paid executives at Reach were chief financial officer Darren Fisher who received total remuneration of £571,000 in 2023 while chief executive Jim Mullen made £564,000. The company’s executives agreed to forgo salary increases in 2023, while Mullen and Fisher have agreed to forgo their bonuses. Fisher received more than Mullen as a result of the business buying out his ITV cash bonus which he forfeited by joining Reach.

The best paid broadcast executive was an unnamed executive at Global who made £3.1m in 2023, followed by ITV’s Carolyn McCall who was paid more than £2.9m – although this was 22% down on 2022.

Private limited companies often just list the salary of their “highest-paid director”. In those cases we have included the pay and company names but not the job title or name of the individual.

Key revelations of the research include:

• RELX paid the most to its executives, with the company's two highest-paid executives, CEO Erik Engstrom and chief financial officer Nick Luff netting over £20m between them.
  
• Of the 60 names on our list, 29 executives, representing 19 companies, grossed at least £1m in remuneration in their last reported annual pay package.
  
• Three Yougov executives accounted for the three biggest year-on-year increases in remuneration due to large share payouts in 2023.
  
• Executives at B2B publishing companies took home the the largest average paychecks (£2.5m) driven by large remuneration packages for top leaders at a handful of companies such as RELX, Informa and Haymarket.
  
• When it came to highest average median salary, B2B media again topped the list (£1.63m) followed by consumer information companies (median executive pay of £1.28m) and magazines (£921,000).
  
• Regional media executives were paid the least on average - the median compensation at the four regional publishers on our list was £459,000.
  
• Less than one in three (29%) of the named executives in our top 60 list are female - down from 36% in 2022.
  
• The median pay for named female executives on the list was £811,000 compared to £1m for men. Average paychecks revealed an even bigger disparity of £1.9m for men compared to £1.1m for their female counterparts, driven by the high pay of a handful of very well compensated male executives.
  
• ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall was the only woman among the ten best paid media executives on the list.
  
• 30 executives on the list received pay increases of at least 4%, while six at least doubled or almost doubled their pay.
  
• Note: For 13 entries on our list we only know the salary for the highest-paid executive at the company according to latest limited company accounts but do not know the name of the executive.

Highest paid UK media jobs: research methodology

The Press Gazette Media Rich List comprises the top 60 best-paid executives at UK news media and magazine publishers, broadcasters and information and data companies with a significant publishing arm. The list is based on availability of public data found in the accounts of the UK's biggest publishing companies.

For each, we have used the most up-to-date pay information available. Some companies have only published information covering 2022, while others have published full accounts for the financial year up to some point in 2023.

Where an executive has moved on from a company or has changed position, the pay and title reported are for the position that the executive held as per the latest pay report.

While publicly-traded companies have to disclose executive pay in their annual financial reports including director names and the various components of their pay, UK private companies only need to disclose the amount received by the highest-paid director in their Companies House filings. They do not have to identify that executive or report the pay packages of other individual executives - meaning that some high-earning executives at private companies that may have otherwise made this list could not be included.

The BBC discloses the pay of any senior managers earning more than £150,000, and any who qualified for the top 60 were included in the list.

Some executives that appeared in our previous list may not appear on this one, for example where a company has been taken private. Highly-paid executives from other companies (such as News Corp and Sky News) also do not feature on the list for a variety of reasons, including that they were registered abroad or had not disclosed full director pay in their Companies House accounts. For example, News UK’s Rebekah Brooks, who was one of the best-paid executives in our last ranking, no longer appears on this list as the company’s latest filing only reflects the fraction of Brooks’ pay deemed to apply to services to News UK.

The list only covers the top executives at companies and does not include the pay of talent. Editors are only included in cases where they served on the executive board of outlets.

If you believe any companies have been left out, please let us know by emailing aisha.majid@ns-mediagroup.com.

Who had the biggest pay increases or decreases?

Despite a challenging economic context in the last few years, many outlets saw executive pay either increase or maintained in 2022 and 2023.

Yougov’s then chief executive (now non-executive chair) Stephan Shakespeare, former chief operating officer Sundip Chahal and chief financial officer Alex McIntosh all took home at least four times as much in 2023 as in 2022 due to large share payouts.

Executives at B2B media and intelligence companies RELX, Informa and Euromoney also saw large pay increases.

Because several of the companies on the list are publicly traded, a large amount of executive remuneration comes from bonuses paid in the form of shares. At RELX for example, chief executive Engstrom's pay comprised £1.6m in base salary and benefits such as pension payments, and over £12m in shares, share payments and cash bonuses.

Nick Luff, RELX's chief financial officer, meanwhile received £916,000 in salary and benefits and a further £6.1m in bonuses and payouts.

Yougov ex-chief executive Shakespeare’s base pay meanwhile was £337,000, but taken with share payouts and other benefits he netted £4.7m during the 2023 financial year.

A number of companies have had a tough couple of years after the pandemic, including Reach which has been hit by falling referral traffic from Facebook and Google and lower yields from advertising. As a result, executives in 2023 were not paid bonuses for a second year and agreed to freeze their salaries. It is a far cry from earlier years when Reach chief executive Jim Mullen and then-chief financial officer Simon Fuller both saw their overall pay packages increase by over 700% between 2020 and 2021.

Scottish broadcaster STV, whose staff recently carried out a one-day strike over pay with a further walkout planned, saw executives receive an effective pay cut due to lower bonuses in 2022. The total remuneration for chief executive Pitts, who is leaving to join Global early next year, was 22% lower in 2023 than 2022.

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UK regional daily print newspaper circulations fell by an average of 19% year-on-year in the second half of 2023 according to the latest ABC figures.

The 401 non-dailies audited by ABC meanwhile saw their January to December circulations decline by an average of 16% compared to 2022, according to Press Gazette’s analysis.

The figures take into account paid print copies, paid print subscriptions and, where relevant, free copies and digital editions. The small number of digital subscriptions reported are also included as per the ABC headline figures.

No daily titles bucked the trend of year-on-year decline in circulation in the last six months of 2023.

Top of the list in terms of circulation perforamance was the Irish News (average circulation of 23,615) which reported the smallest decline at 7%, making it again the only one of the 54 daily titles audited by ABC that saw a fall of less than 10%.

National World’s The Scotsman (circulation of 7,710), Newsquest’s Dorset Echo (4,871) and Bolton News (3,797) and DC Thomson's Aberdeen Evening Express (9,449) were all down 12% year-on-year.

At the other end of the table was Reach’s the Manchester Evening News, hardest hit among the dailies for a second year in a row. Print sales were 38% down year-on-year as average circulation fell to 7,315. Reach made the decision to end free copies of the newspaper in August 2022 so this is still impacting the comparative figures.

Eight of the ten titles with the biggest year-on-year falls were owned by Reach, whose daily titles included in the ABC data saw a combined average decline of 25%.

The Hull Daily Mail (average circulation of 5,763, down 31%), Coventry Telegraph (3,213, down 28%) and Teesside Gazette (4,877, down 27%) were among the Reach titles that saw circulation drops of over a quarter. Print nevertheless still makes up 75% of revenues of Reach, which also publishes a number of the UK's best known national newsbrands including the Mirror, with digital on 25%.

Reach has increased print cover prices to offset declining online advertising revenue over the last year.

At a publisher level Newsquest fared best among those with at least five titles reporting to ABC for 2023, although it still reported a combined decline of 16% across its 22 titles included in the data.

The Irish News has taken the top spot by readership from 2022’s most-widely circulated print daily, Aberdeen Press & Journal (22,927) which is now in second.

DC Thomson-owned The Courier was third with an average circulation of 17,647. DC Thomson is one of a small group of local publishers that have also made some headway with digital subscriptions.

Among non-dailies, Newsquest’s Hunts Post saw the sharpest fall of 51% from 21,791 to 10,754, reflecting a smaller print run since the title is distributed free of charge.

It was among 22 non-daily titles to see circulation drops of over one third. Of the 401 non-daily titles in the data, 64 are free - of which all but 12 saw circulation drop as fewer copies were printed.

London free paper Hackney Gazette, published by Newsquest (formerly Archant), almost tripled its average circulation which was up 172% year-on-year from 1,347 to 3,668.

A further five free Newsquest titles covering London, including Islington Gazette (average circulation of 4,887), Docklands & East London Advertiser (4,963), Newham Recorder (7,729), Ilford Recorder (5,749) and Ham and High Express (5,909) also saw circulation rises of at least 10%.

Paid non-dailies fared worse with only Aberdeen title Ellon Times seeing its circulation rise (up by 35%) although its average distribution per edition is just 138.

Online audience growth

Online audience data from Ipsos iris suggests that while print readership is falling, some brands are seeing growth in their online audiences.

Of the top 50 UK regional digital brands according to Ipsos iris data for January 2024, 19 saw an increase in audience size.

Bristol Live (5.3 million, up 180% compared to January 2023), Gloucestershire Live (2.8 million, up 127%), Worcester News (973,629, up 115%) and Oxford Mail (1.2 million, up 106%) all more than doubled their online reach.

Birmingham Live (11.2 million people) and Manchester Evening News (11 million) meanwhile saw large audiences of almost a quarter of the UK online population.

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“The local news crisis in the US is deepening,” according to the latest edition of the State of Local News in 2023, published by Northwestern University’s Medill School.

Half of counties in America have either one news outlet or none at all, finds the 2023 report, as many publishers are still struggling to find a model for local news in the digital era.

Some local publishers have hit upon a model, however, bucking the decline and finding success through digital subscriptions.

This second and updated list of paid digital subscriber counts at local news publishers reveals that there is a small but sizeable group of independent titles growing their paid subscriber base.

Since large publishing groups such as Gannett, Hearst and Lee Enterprises tend to reveal their digital subscriber numbers at a publisher-wide level only, once again Press Gazette’s list focuses on independent, local titles.

Gannett, publisher of USA Today as well as some 100 local titles, saw paid digital-only subscribers increase just under 1% in the third quarter of 2023 after falling slightly in the first two quarters. Hearst’s newspapers unit, which publishes titles including The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle, was reported to have around 370,000 digital subscribers as of the beginning of 2023.

The Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe again top our list of independent local titles with over 800,000 digital subscribers between them. Since the first version of this story appeared in September 2022, the LA Times has upped its digital subscriber count by 10% to 550,000, while the Boston Globe’s count is up 6% to just over 260,000.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has held steady at around 100,000, while The Philadelphia Inquirer has seen subscriptions surge by 30% to 91,000. The Pennsylvania-based publisher launched a multi-platform brand campaign in October 2023 which it hopes will draw in younger audiences. Spokesperson Evan Benn told Press Gazette that it is still too early to discuss results, he said early indications are promising.

Not far behind, The Seattle Times, which is independently owned by publisher Frank Blethen, has seen its subscriber count grow 9% since our last report to 88,000 as of September 2023.

If you want to add your publisher’s digital subscriptions data to this table or think it can be improved in any way, please email aisha.majid@ns-mediagroup.com

Typical US publisher now has more digital subscribers than print ones

While growth for some local publishers has been impressive in recent years, not all have managed to make subscriptions work and some have lost paying readers.

After subscriber numbers grew 21% in 2021 growth slowed down for many local publishers in 2023, said Pete Doucette of Mather Economics, a business consultancy which works with publishing clients. In 2023, the median publisher’s subscriber volume had shrunk by almost 3%, said Doucette.

But despite some setbacks the trajectory is upwards, according to Doucette, who said that December 2023 was a key inflection point for US news media as the median publisher now has more digital subscribers than print.

Top-line digital subscriber numbers are only part of the story, however. Doucette said that digital revenue is not set to surpass print until 2027.

Revenue concerns have led to painful decisions at some newsrooms. In January this year, the Los Angeles Times announced it would be laying off 115 people - over 20% of its newsroom - citing the cuts as necessary because the title could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising and subscription revenue.

Publishers are under significant financial strain, said Doucette, but the industry continues to move towards more sustainable pricing levels for digital subscriptions as publishers increasingly think about their average revenue per user (ARPU) and move away from a sole focus on growing subscriber volume. The top decile of publishers that Mather works with, said Doucette, have an effective monthly ARPU of over $17. "So clearly, pricing is a significant revenue lever," he said.

Doucette said local publishers are also thinking about where costs can be cut - retaining things like the newsroom and local sales in-house, while outsourcing parts of the business such as technology, finance and human resources. He said that successful publishers are also expanding their digital products to align with what audiences want such as subscription tiers and AI-driven news games.

Despite an overall picture of contraction and consolidation across the US, Louisiana's largest local media company Georges Media Group hopes that its launch last July of a new ten-person digital-first newsroom to serve the city of Shreveport could provide a roadmap for sector sustainability.

Launching following community feedback that more coverage of local politics was needed, The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate newsroom uses a mix of philanthropic support, advertisers, subscriptions and is built around a digital-first distribution strategy.

Kyle Whitfield, vice president of consumer revenue at Georges said that across the group, digital subscriber revenue growth is outpacing digital subscription volume growth, which he added is "certainly not a bad thing". The publisher, he said, is retaining customers even after the deeply discounted introductory offer ends.

While being sustainable through digital subscriber revenue is, Whitfield said, "a great North Star-type goal", diversification is bringing success right now, as the company has found additional success in advertising with video services and branded content.

The post Paying for local news online: Paywalled US local news titles ranked appeared first on Press Gazette.

The combined average newspaper circulation of the 25 largest US titles fell 14% in the year to September 2023, according to new figures obtained by Press Gazette.

The decline in combined year-on-year average circulation was the same as that seen in the 12 months to March 2023 (also 14%, although the group of titles was slightly different).

Combined average daily print circulation of the 25 biggest dailies was 2.3 million in the six months to September, compared to 2.7 million the year before, and 2.6 million in the six months to March 2023 according to data from the Alliance for Audited Media.

News Corp’s business-focused The Wall Street Journal (555,182) and The New York Times (267,639) remain the biggest dailies in the US, although their print circulations fell by 14% and 13% year-on-year respectively.

Note on the data: ranking of the top 25 biggest print circulations among a list of the 50 biggest circulations (print and digital) provided to us by Alliance for Audited Media.

Print decline however, does not reflect the industry's overall health.

While print remains an important revenue stream, data on digital subscriptions presents a more promising picture. Many major publishers have invested in securing digital reader revenue and several titles in this ranking have built up large digital subscriber bases. The New York Times has in particular seen impressive digital subscription growth in recent years, counting 9.7 million subscribers as of December 2023, while the Wall Street Journal, which has a larger print readership than the NY Times, counted 3.5 million. Both titles regularly top Press Gazette's 100k Club ranking of English-language newsbrands. Earlier in February, News Corp reported a year-on-year increase in second quarter revenue driven in part by growth at Wall Street Jones' publisher Dow Jones.

Some more locally-focused titles such as The Philadelphia Inquirer and Newsday have also steadily built up a digital subscriber base. Newsday for example, now counts 57,000 digital subscribers. The publisher however, told Press Gazette in 2022 that it intends to hold onto print as long as possible.

The New York Post claimed third place for print circulation with an average readership of 131,217, overtaking Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post (127,724) which fell to fourth. Although the New York City News Corp tabloid saw a circulation fall of 8% compared to September 2022, this was the smallest fall among the top ten biggest titles. This makes this the second report period in a row for which The New York Post has had the smallest year-on-year circulation drop among the top ten.

No newspaper in the top 25 increased its circulation year-on-year, although Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle (average circulation of 50,843, down 6% year-on-year) and Honolulu Star-Advertiser (71,646, down 7%) saw the smallest falls. They with the New York Post were the only three titles to see single-digit falls.

Gannett’s USA Today, which fell from third to fifth place in our last ranking remained in fifth spot with a circulation of 121,603 (down 16% year-on-year). Prior to the pandemic the paper’s circulation was 486,579. The title has not bounced back from the pandemic’s hit to sales to hotels.

The Los Angeles Times, ranked sixth, saw a fall in its print circulation of 17% to 105,676, although like the New York Times and others on this list it has a substantial digital subscriber base of 550,000 - the highest for any English-language local publisher - according to information shared by the publisher with Press Gazette.

Alden Capital-owned Denver Post saw the biggest year-on-year decline in the six months to September 2023. Its average circulation was down 25% year-on-year to 36,730, followed closely by Tampa Bay Times (62,582, down 24%).

September 2023 print figures were not available for New York state title, Buffalo News. Press Gazette used the latest available number from March 2023.

Most circulations reported are Monday-Friday averages of newspaper titles. Where this data was not available, Wednesday circulation data was used. Affiliated titles are not included in our circulation figures. Only English language titles were included in this ranking which does not include Spanish-language titles from the US territory of Puerto Rico.

8 March: This story was updated to include a note on the data clarifying that AAM supplies Press Gazette with a list of the 50 biggest AAM-audited local titles in the US, from which we extract the biggest print circulations, and the headline was slightly amended to make it clear that it is the largest title's print circulations ranked, rather than the largest print circulations.

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It’s been another tumutuous year for the news industry as generative AI burst onto the scene, Facebook continued its retreat from news, thousands of staff were laid off and press freedom suffered another blow with the continued killing of journalists and media workers.

Here are seven charts which tell the story of 2023 for news media.

1 .Chat GPT threatened to upend the news industry – and the internet

The explosion of generative AI tools, particularly Chat GPT, was possibly the biggest story for the industry in 2023, although how it will impact news publishers is still unknown.

Publishers so far are divided in how they are approaching the technology. Some like Gizmodo and Schibsted are incorporating it into editorial workflows, while Shutterstock and The Associated Press opted to sign deals with ChatGPT maker OpenAI for use of their content.

The Guardian in September however, became one of the first major publishers to publicly announce that it had blocked ChatGPT from trawling its content while The New York Times meanwhile is looking at legal action against OpenAI over what it says is the illegal use of its content to train generative AI models.

2. Facebook continued to disengage from news

Facebook referral traffic continued to plummet in 2023 for news publishers amid Meta’s ongoing turn away from the news industry. Data from Chartbeat shows that for 1,315 publishers across the world included in the publishing analytics company's data, the share of external page views coming from Facebook fell from 18% in April 2018 to to 8% in November 2023.

The impact has been sharply felt by the digital native publishers who built their businesses on the back of Facebook traffic. In April Buzzfeed News shuttered its doors and in May Vice Media declared bankruptcy.

Legacy publishers however, not been spared. In April Reach blamed a page-view slowdown on "recent changes to the way Facebook presents news content".

3. Growth of newsbrands on Tiktok

While Facebook retreats from news, publishers are increasingly turning their attention to Tiktok. Last year the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) found that around half of the leading news publishers in over 40 countries regularly published content to the Chinese-owned video platform.

As of 17 December, youth-focused Ladbible was the largest publisher on Tiktok with 13.1 million followers. It was followed by Daily Mail, which rapidly increased its following from 4.5 million last December to 7.5 million this year.

Phil Harvey, Mail Online’s head of social video told Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast: "We’ve really invested in Tiktok as a platform and that comes right from the top of the business. For us investing and diversifying the way that we reach audiences is part of future-proofing the business."

4. Ad spend down

Although ad spending on news held up in 2022, the Advertising Association and WARC which publishes regular adspend forecasts correctly predicted a worse 2023 for the industry. Adspend was down for news and magazines in the first half of the year, and AA/WARC predicts that spending across news, magazines and radio will underperform relative to online advertising as whole in 2023. Regional newsbrands are expected to be hardest hit with spending predicted to be down 10% year-on-year.

5. Subscriptions growth for some publishers

With reliance on the advertising model looking increasingly precarious for news publishers, it is little surprise that many are turning to readers to secure their futures. Four in five publishers told RISJ that subscriptions would be their most important revenue stream in 2023 - compared to 75% who reported it would be display advertising. More significant perhaps is the direction of travel with the number of publishers favouring subscriptions having increased since 2020, while those saying they would rely most on advertising decreased.

The latest edition of Press Gazette’s 100k Club which ranks English-language publishers with at least 100,000 digital subscribers revealed that this group of publishers, while still an elite continues to grow. The almost 40 members of the100k Club counted over 39 million digital subscriptions between them in December 2023, compared to 35 million in March.

6. Revenue down at Reach

2023 was a difficult year for the UK’s largest commercial news publisher. In its half-year results published in July, Reach reported an operating profit of £36.1m - down 24% on the first half of 2022, while revenue was down 6% at £279m.

Over-reliance on advertising, deprioritsation of news by Facebook and other platforms and a difficult economic environment have all been cited as factors in the company’s waning fortunes.

Not surprisingly, Reach is one of many publishers that laid off staff this year, cutting almost 800 roles in 2023. Some 450 jobs were axed in its latest and most sweeping round of cuts in October. The company said that the restructure would see it merge the print and digital teams on its national and regional titles and close 13 of its regional "Live" websites.

7. Dozens of journalists killed

As of 1 December, 81 journalists and media workers around the world lost their lives in 2023 - up from 68 last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Many of the deaths came in the context of the war in Gaza with CPJ research finding that at least 68 journalists and media workers have been killed as a result of the fighting, although not all of them were killed in the line of work.

The post Seven charts that explain the news industry in 2023: From declining ad spend to growth of AI appeared first on Press Gazette.

The world’s largest English-language news publishers now have over 39.5 million digital subscribers between them, research from Press Gazette shows.

Some of that increase is due to continued growth over the past six months in subscriber numbers at titles such as The Daily Telegraph, The Times and Sunday Times and The Athletic. Some is from the addition of new names to our ranking as we continue to unearth further figures on the news publishers with the most subscribers.

Top of the table is the The New York Times which has added 210,000 digital-only subscribers in just three months bringing it to 9.4 million subscribers. This is more than twice as many as fellow New York Times Company property, The Athletic which counted 4.2 million subscribers in September. The Athletic’s subscriber growth means that it has leapfrogged News Corp’s Wall Street Journal (3.5 million subscribers), which has dropped down into third place.

Behind them, the Washington Post, local news giant Gannett and Substack likely top two million subscribers. We have not however, seen new figures for the Washington Post since 2021 when the publisher was reportedly shedding subscribers. Its current total is therefore unknown.

Us Weekly, the rest of Dow Jones titles, News Corp Australia, Weather Channel, The Guardian and the Financial Times meanwhile have at least one million subscribers. Us Weekly is a new addition into our ranking.

Consumer champion, Which? makes a first entry in joint 19th place with 500,000 digital-only subscribers, while Australia’s Nine Entertainment also makes a debut in the 100k Club in 21st position with 460,000 digital-only subscribers.

Overall, 37 publishers and news brands from the US, UK, Canada and Australia feature in this edition of the 100k Club which is the sixth iteration of Press Gazette’s ranking of the world’s largest English-language news publishers by digital-only subscriptions.

We have updated or first-time figures for 30 publishers on our list.

While many figures on our list pertain to individual titles, in some cases figures are reported at the publisher level only, often for the purpose of shareholders. While this will move large publishers up the ranking, in most cases a breakdown by title is not available.

The updated list features exclusive new figures for several publishers, including Business Insider and Globe and Mail.

Tribune Publishing Company and McClatchy do not appear in this version of the ranking despite previously counting over 100,000 digital subscribers as we have removed publishers who have not reported new data since mid-2021 from the ranking.

Biggest paywalled news websites in the world:

1 – The New York Times Company: 9.4m

The New York Times is the industry’s preeminent example of success in digital subscriptions. In November, the Gray Lady crossed 10 million subscribers (including print) and the company says that it is on its way to its goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.

The New York Times Company reported a 13% year-on-year increase in revenue from digital-only subscriptions, adding a net 210,000 digital-only subscribers in the quarter to September 2023. This includes people with a paid digital-only subscription to one or more of the company’s news products, The Athletic, Games, Cooking and Wirecutter.

The Athletic, which The NYT bought for $550m in January 2022, had just over 1 million subscribers at the time of acquisition. It has since more than quadrupled that figure to reach 4.2 million subscribers as per the latest New York Times Company earning release.

Despite subscriber growth (and introduction of advertising), the sports title continues to operate at a loss, although quarterly revenue grew 46% year-on-year. At the time of purchase The New York Times Company said that it expected that it would take around three years for The Athletic to turn a profit.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, September 2023

2 – The Wall Street Journal: 3.5m

The Wall Street Journal was one of the first major newsbrands to go behind a paywall in the mid-1990s. Despite losing its long-held second place spot in our ranking, the business and finance-focused title nevertheless continues to grow its paying audience.

WSJ is the largest constituent of Dow Jones, a News Corp-owned financial news company which also publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Market Watch, Mansion Global, Financial News and Private Equity News.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, September 2023

3 – The Washington Post: 2.5m

It has been two years since we have been able to report a new figure for The Washington Post. The publisher which is privately owned by Jeff Bezos was reported by the WSJ in October 2021 to have lost some 500,000 subscribers since Biden took office in January of the same year.

Last year the company announced it was reorganising its audience strategy and growth teams to grow its audience. Since the company does not report subscriber numbers, we cannot tell how far this approach has paid off.

Source and date of figure: The Wall Street Journal, October 2021

4 – Gannett: 2m

After a small decline in the number of subscribers in the first two quarters of 2023, the US publishing giant saw subscriptions grow again in the latest quarter (up 0.7% quarter-on-quarter) to reach 1.96 million. This is just shy of the 2 million the company reported at the end of 2022.

Gannett owns hundreds of local US titles, USA Today and UK regional publisher Newsquest, which it bought in 1999.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, September 2023

5 – Substack: 2m

Newsletter platform Substack announced earlier this year that it had passed 20 million monthly active subscribers, including two million paid subscriptions.

Recent analysis by Press Gazette estimated that the 27 highest-earning email newsletters on the platform generate at least $22m a year in revenue.

Source and date of figure: Company announcement, February 2023

6 – Us Weekly: 1.7m

Us Weekly is a new entrant on our list, which we have broadened this time to include major celebrity and entertainment news titles. The US title has the biggest paid digital circulation among US magazines according to the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM). National Enquirer owner, American Media purchased Us Weekly in 2017.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

7 – Dow Jones (excluding The Wall Street Journal): 1.2m

The remaining Dow Jones titles excluding the Wall Street Journal reported steady subscriptions growth in the quarter to September 2023. The company sold off most of its index business, publishers of the well known Dow Jones Industrial Average, in 2010.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, September 2023

8 – News Corp Australia: 1m

News Corp’s Australian division includes The Australian, The Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph. As of the end of September 2023, it reported having 1,049,000 digital subscribers, up 4% on the same time last year.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, September 2023

9 – Weather Channel: 1m

Owned by IBM, the Weather Channel’s premium digital subscription gives readers access to enhanced forecast and weather data. In March this year, the company told Press Gazette that it had upwards of one million subscribers but has not provided an update for this edition of the ranking.

Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, March 2023

10 – The Guardian: 1m

Having passed the one million recurring digital supporters threshold in 2021, the Guardian Media Group (GMG) continues to grow revenue. In its latest 2022/2023 results the company revealed that its digital income was up almost 8% compared to 2022 with digital now accounting for 70% total revenues. Almost two thirds of the company’s revenue now comes from outside the UK, as GMG continues to expand its international footprint.

Source and date of figure: Press release, March 2022

11 – Financial Times: 1m

The company passed the 1 million digital subscribers mark in 2022.

Earlier this year the FT launched an app version of the FT Digital Edition, a digital replica of the print newspaper. The company says that FT Digital Edition subscriptions have nearly doubled since 2019 globally, particularly in the US.

Source and date of figure: Press release, March 2022

12 – Medium: 825k

Since 2017, Medium – part publisher, part platform – has offered a paid subscription tier. Medium, which was set up by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, counted 825,000 subscriptions according to a report in Tech Crunch in October 2023. The company told the Tech Crunch podcast that it hopes it will finally be profitable in 2024.

Source and date of figure: Tech Crunch, October 2023

13 – The Economist: 697k

While The Economist Group derives significant income from advertising, its research and other revenue streams, subscriptions made up around 60% of the company’s income in 2023. This year, the Economist reported 1,182,000 digital subscriptions, with some 60% digital subscriptions only, which is the figure we have used for this ranking. Three quarters (75%) of new subscribers sign-ups were digital-only in 2023, up from 66% in 2022.

Source and date of figure: Annual report, 2023

14 – The Telegraph: 670k

The Telegraph has had a tumultuous year after its bankers, Lloyd’s took control of the company in June after its owner, the Barclays family were unable to service more than £1bn in unpaid debt. In the latest chapter, the family has sought to regain control of the newspaper publisher helped by funding from Abu Dhabi raising potential public interest concerns for the UK government.

Despite its ownership woes, the Telegraph remains profitable and has seen rapid growth in its digital subscriptions business having grown to 669,613 paying readers in October, and it passed its stated goal of hitting 1 million subscriptions (print and digital) earlier this year.

Source and date for figure: TMG subscription numbers, October 2023

15 – Lee Enterprises: 606k

Lee Enterprises publishes dozens of daily local newspapers including The Arizona Daily Sun, The St Louis Post-Dispatch and Tulsa World as well as hundreds of weekly titles in the US, mostly in small and mid-sized markets. In June the publisher announced that digital-only subscribers were up 21% compared to the same quarter last year.

Source and date for figure: Quarterly earnings, June 2023

16 – The Times, Sunday Times and TLS: 572k

News UK division, The Times, Sunday Times and Times Literary Supplement had 572,000 digital subscribers between them in September 2023. Despite being one of the more expensive digital subscriptions in the UK £312 for a year, The Times has grown its number of subscribers in each iteration of Press Gazette’s 100k Club ranking.

Source and date of figure: Quarterly earnings, June 2023

17 – The Los Angeles Times: 550k

The Los Angeles Times, is America’s largest metropolitan daily newspaper and the largest digital subscription news business on the west coast.

According to a report in Axios earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times has 550,000 digital subscriptions, including those from third-party apps, like Apple News+, more than twice the 250,000 digital subscriptions reported in late 2020.

Source and date for figure: Axios, March 2023

18 – Bloomberg Media: 500k

Five years after it launched the Bloomberg.com paywall, the publication passed a milestone this October amassing 500,000 subscribers globally, including people who are signed-up through Apple News+.

Source and date for figure: Company spokesperson, November 2023

18 – Which?: 500k

Consumer champion Which? reports around 500,000 digital-only subscribers. Its subscriptions business helps fund its consumer protection advocacy and information work. Subscribers pay for access to all the editorial content produced by the which editorial team and for its vast archive of up-to-date reviews covering everything from dishwashers to used cars.

Source and date of figure: Company spokesperson, December 2023

20 – Readly: 461k

Swedish magazine and newspaper reading app, Readly continues to grow its paying subscriber base. Subscribers were up 3% quarter-on-quarter in the third of 2023 to 460,686. The digital subscription service has partnered with over 1,200 publishers and offers users access to more than 7,600 magazines and newspapers.

Source and data of figure: Third quarter report, September 2023

21 – Nine Entertainment: 460k

Another new name on our list as Press Gazette seeks to expand the reach of our ranking, Australian media giant Nine Entertainment operates in television, streaming, publishing and radio. The company publishes a number of well-known Australian titles including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review and digital-only subscriptions to its titles stand at 460,000.

Source and date for figure: Interim report, June 2023

22 – The New Yorker: 404k

In the first half of 2023, The New Yorker’s average digital circulation was 403,704 according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate. The figure excludes an Apple News+ circulation of 56,282.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

23 – The Atlantic: 379k

The Atlantic had an average digital circulation of 379,105 in the first half of 2023, according to its latest Alliance for Audited Media certificate. CEO Nicholas Thompson told Axios in August this year that it finally hopes to become profitable in 2024. The same Axios article said that The Atlantic makes around 60% of its revenue from consumer subscriptions. The title has an additional 110,127 through Apple News+.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

24 – Hearst Newspapers: 370k

According to US media trade title, Editor and Publisher, Hearst had around 370,000 digital-only subscribers to its news division as of the start of this year. The figure is our estimate based on a visualisation in E&P as Hearst did not respond to our request for a figure earlier this year and has not provided us with an update this autumn.

Source and date of figure: Editor and Publisher, January 2023

25 – Business Insider: 330k

A company spokesperson from Axel Springer-owned Business Insider told Press Gazette this month that its total subscriptions are currently at 330,000 across Business Insider and Insider Intelligence.

Source and date for figure: Company spokesperson, November 2023

26 – National Geographic: 293k

National Geographic had an average digital circulation of 292,763 in the first half of 2023, representing growth of 20% compared to the second half of 2022 according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate. The figure excludes an Apple News+ circulation of 120,723.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

27 – The Boston Globe: 256k

The Boston Globe has one of the most successful digital subscription businesses in local news in the US, although its growth has plateaued recently – we last reported a figure of 255k the last time we published this ranking in March 2023. For over ten years, Boston Globe Media has run two websites – Boston.com, a free site that is ad-supported, and a premium, subscriber-only site BostonGlobe.com that supports its core mission of growing reader revenue.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

28 – Time: 255k

American news magazine, Time reported a paid digital circulation of 255,247 in the first half of 2023, according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate, before removing its paywall in June. An additonal 56,354 through Apple News+ is not included here. Although it continues to still charge for a print edition, the company hopes removing its digital paywall and moving to advertising-supported content will allow it to reach a wider and younger audience.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

29 – The Globe and Mail: 246k

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s largest national newspaper and its audience is reportedly second only to that of the freely available national broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

According to a spokesperson, the title now has around 246,000 digital-only subscriptions, excluding Apple News+.

Source and date for figure: Company spokesperson, November 2023

30 – Mail Plus: 160k

The Mail + which is a digital replica of the print paper first launched in 2013 as an iPad product. It has since upgraded its offering to also include an interactive website-style format along with extra digital content and currently counts 160,000 subscribers of which 90,000 are digital-only. (Mail print subscribers get access to Mail+ as part of their subscription).

Source and date of figure: Press Gazette, September 2023

31 – Wired: 144k

Technology title Wired had a digital circulation of 143,911 from January to June 2023 according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate. An additional 63,052 subscribers come from Apple News+ (not included in our total). According to the company, longform reporting, Ideas essays, and issue guides helped build up its subscriber base in the first year after its introduction of paywall in 2019.

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

32 – Fortune: 139k

Despite a fall in its subscriber base (Fortune had a digital circulation of 164,464 in the second half of 2022), Fortune maintains a spot in our 100k Club ranking with an average circulation of 138,842 in the first half of this year according to its Alliance for Audited Media certificate. An additional 47,172 subscribers come from Apple News+ (not included in our total).

Source and date for figure: AAM, January-June 2023

34 – Harvard Business Review: 129k

Harvard Business Review has amassed 128,905 digital subscribers, four years after launching its digital subscriptions offering in 2019. Digital subscribers make up more than one-third of the total subscriber base at the more than 100-year old publication according to company figures reported by Ad Week last November.

Source and date of figure: AAM, January-June 2023

35 – New Zealand Herald: 123k

New Zealand’s newspaper of record counts 218,000 subscribers of which 123,000 are digital-only subscriptions.

Source and date of figure: Interim report, June 2023

36 – Australian Community Media: 120k

ACM owns The Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and Border Mail and Australia’s largest publisher of regional news through a network of 140 regional, rural and suburban newspapers and websites. In 2021, it announced that it had surpassed 100,000 digital subscribers – and in a report from June 2022, the company’s executive editor, James Joyce noted that ACM had 120,000 subscribers.

Source and date for figure: Australian Digital News Report, June 2022

37 – Minneapolis Star Tribune: 100k

Longstanding Minneapolis title The Star Tribune has maintained its 100,000 digital subscribers as reported in a company press release this month detailing three new senior leadership roles in news coverage and digital strategy.

Source and date for figure: Company release, November 2023

Any more? If you know of any publishers or newsbrands that should be on our list or think that this list can be improved in any way, please email aisha.majid@ns-mediagroup.com. Our ranking is currently focused on English-language publications, but we are interested in hearing about other successful titles in this area.

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