New Zealand’s biggest news publisher Stuff has seen an “extraordinary” pace of growth in the past 18 months after splitting the business in two and launching digital subscriptions for its legacy newspapers.

In April last year, Stuff Ltd restructured into two distinct businesses with different strategies: Masthead Publishing, which launched digital subscriptions for its legacy titles, and Stuff Digital for the un-paywalled flagship Stuff website.

Digital subscriptions were first launched for The Post, The Press and the Waikato Times before six more regional brands and one national Sunday paper were added to the package. The main bundle, which gives access to all the company’s digital news publications together and also includes some magazines, costs NZ$149 (about £69) per year.

Digital and print subscribers now deliver almost double the reach of print alone. Although digital revenue is still smaller than print for these titles, the “pace of growth has been extraordinary,” head of content development Elise Johnson told Press Gazette.

Johnson said the decision to split the business into two divisions “was a logical one, as they both served very different purposes.

“Stuff, as the most-read news website in New Zealand, has a focus on reaching the widest audience possible, giving Kiwis reliable and fast news coverage. Whereas the newspapers focus on in-depth reporting on issues relevant to a smaller but highly engaged audience.”

The three Masthead Publishing titles all have “very different voices and audiences” and offer something complementary to the bundle. The Post is based in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, and has a wider national and political focus. The Press is based in Christchurch and is the voice for the South Island, while The Waikato Times website has a strong regional tone as it comprises a stable of local newspapers.

Johnson said the initial subscriptions launch was “carefully crafted to retain the existing readership and get them excited about the websites”. The three newspapers all gave prominence to information about the digital offer across their first three pages including letters from the editors.

The opportunity was also taken to modernise, including by changing the name of The Dominion Post to The Post with the slogan: “Under no-one’s dominion” as a reference to New Zealand’s past relationship with the UK.

“It also had a double meaning, that The Post now would be obtaining new digital subscribers and no longer hosting their articles online on Stuff – this is pretty empowering for the journalists and editors alike because our digital subscription growth is directly linked to our editorial content,” Johnson said.

According to Nielsen figures for September shared by Stuff, the digital subscription sites have a combined unique audience of just under 750,000 while the Stuff website itself has a unique audience of 2.2 million people. New Zealand has a population of about 5.5 million.

[Read more: How NZ news site Stuff is tackling news avoidance]

Shift from page views to subs as key metric drives in-depth reporting

Overall the Stuff group employs 350 journalists. The biggest strategic change in the Masthead Publishing newsrooms, Johnson said, was the shift in focus from page views to paid-for digital subscriptions.

“We can clearly see from the numbers that big breaking news brings in the page views (which is still important to us) but it’s the analysis, opinion, and exclusives around those news stories that motivate people to subscribe,” she said. “So we are prioritising that style of editorial content more and more.”

She added: “We all know how addictive page views are, and so initially the newsrooms did find it hard to shift to using subscriber acquisition as the new key metric. However, after seeing the uplift in subscriber numbers for their articles and the willingness of readers to pay online, there was a positive shift in the newsrooms.

“The act of paying for high-quality content is a powerful endorsement of what we do. Our journalists can see this is how our sector remains relevant and healthy in the digital age.”

Johnson also described the heritage newspapers as having “something of a start-up vibe when it comes to knowing that editorial lines will bring in the subscriptions”.

Johnson, who arrived at Stuff shortly before the new strategy went live, brought experience from UK subscription businesses The Telegraph and The New Statesman. Asked about the differences between the local news markets in the UK and New Zealand, she said: “New Zealand has a very loyal newspaper audience, although as with the UK, print is in steady decline.

“There is a dispersed population and the cost of delivery in NZ is substantial. Coupled with the increased cost of paper, the need to move to digital sooner rather than later is critical. To help migrate readers from print to digital, current print subscribers automatically get access to the websites. This is to encourage them to use digital products.”

She added: “The New Zealand market is very different market to the UK. There are only 5.5 million people, therefore, most people tend to have closer personal connections with small towns across the country and an interest in what is happening there. This means local stories resonate with people outside their locality. To leverage this feature, we have incorporated small local paper news as part of the wider subscription. This helps keep our local papers viable.

“Additionally, as the cost of living in New Zealand goes up, and a newspaper subscription might feel like more of a luxury, if people can no longer afford to pay for the paper we can offer them a digital-only subscription, which can be very appealing.”

Print remains “financially important to us as does delivering a high-quality product to our customers,” Johnson said. “However, we accept that there is an inexorable shift to digital news consumption, hence we want to form digital habits now with these websites.”

As Stuff is a private company it does not share its subscriber numbers or related figures.

But Belinda Lush, director of reader revenue, told Press Gazette that the “launch of our digital subscription products has delivered incremental revenue and audience growth.

“We see the growth of our digital subscriber base as a critical investment in the sustainability of independent journalism in New Zealand.”

Sharing her key lessons for other publishers, Johnson said: “The fundamentals of making any transition like this are to have a well-thought-out strategy, to communicate well with customers and take them with you, and to make sure the staff get and own the strategy.

“Of course, the financials need to be robust and the metrics for success crystal clear. In practice this is of course hard and needs determination, resilience and strong leadership,” she added, citing in particular chief executive Sinead Boucher, who bought Stuff for $1 in management buyout in 2020, and managing director Joanna Norris.

The post How top New Zealand news publisher unlocked growth by splitting in two appeared first on Press Gazette.

Former Express online editorial director Tom Hunt is now editor-in-chief of the brand.

In recent months Gary Jones has left the Express after six years as editor-in-chief and subsequently Sunday Express editor David Wooding also departed.

Jones was the second editor-in-chief of a Reach national newspaper to leave their post this year after six years: Alison Phillips stepped down from the Mirror at the end of January and was succeeded by Caroline Waterston.

Also this year London free business newspaper City AM, which is expanding its remit nationally, has appointed its former editor Christian May to return to the role.

Press Gazette has put together a round-up of the UK’s national newspaper editors as they stand (in no particular order). We will keep this list updated.

UK national newspaper editors

The Times

Tony Gallagher was appointed editor of The Times on 28 September 2022 following the resignation of John Witherow the day before.

Gallagher was promoted from deputy editor, and had already been acting as caretaker editor for several months while Witherow was on medical leave.

Gallagher joined The Times in February 2020 from fellow News UK title The Sun where he was editor for five years. He has also previously edited The Daily Telegraph between 2009 and 2014.

The Sunday Times

Ben Taylor was named editor of The Sunday Times on 19 January 2023, stepping up from deputy editor after news Emma Tucker would be leaving to lead The Wall Street Journal from 1 February.

Taylor was previously executive editor of the Daily Mail, where he worked for 22 years, before joining The Sunday Times as deputy editor in 2020.

Daily Mail

Ted Verity has edited the Daily Mail since November 2021, having previously been at the helm of the Mail on Sunday since 2018 and deputy at the daily paper before that.

He is editor-in-chief of Mail Newspapers, meaning he has overall responsibility for the Mail brands in a seven-day operation.

Mail on Sunday

Following Verity’s promotion, David Dillon was appointed to be Mail on Sunday editor in December 2021. He was previously Verity’s deputy.

Dillon first joined the Mail on Sunday from the Daily Express in 2001, working as news editor for a number of years before being promoted to executive editor.

The Sun and The Sun on Sunday

Victoria Newton has been editor-in-chief of The Sun since February 2020. She had been editor at The Sun on Sunday since 2013 but took over from Gallagher when he left The Sun for The Times.

Newton has maintained responsibility for the Sunday title in her editor-in-chief role.

Daily Mirror

Caroline Waterston, previously editor-in-chief of Reach magazines and supplements, has edited the Daily Mirror since the start of February 2024 – initially on an interim basis before she was made permanent on 30 April.

Waterston first joined Reach (then Trinity Mirror) in the mid-1990s and her roles have included deputy news editor and features editor of The People, features editor of the Sunday Mirror, head of features and deputy editor on the Sunday titles, deputy editor-in-chief across the Express and Star titles after their acquisition by Reach, and editor-in-chief of the national magazines including OK! magazine.

Waterston took over from Alison Phillips, who had edited the Daily Mirror since March 2018 and was editor-in-chief of that title plus the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People from February 2020 with the move to a seven-day operation.

The Daily Telegraph

Chris Evans has been editor of The Telegraph since January 2014 after the sacking of Tony Gallagher. He has been with The Telegraph since 2007, with previous roles including news editor and head of news, after joining from the Daily Mail where he spent 11 years.

The Sunday Telegraph

Although Evans has ultimate editorial responsibility at The Telegraph, Allister Heath has edited The Sunday Telegraph since 2017, having previously been Telegraph deputy editor.

Daily Express and Sunday Express

Tom Hunt, formerly Express online editorial director, was named editor-in-chief of the brand on 20 September.

At the Daily Express he succeeded Gary Jones who stepped down after six years in the role, which he used to detoxify the brand. Sunday Express editor David Wooding departed his own role about two months later as the Express becomes a seven-day operation without a dedicated Sunday Express team.

Before that Hunt had been with the Express for more than eight years, including as video news editor, leading its first team dedicated to video, and head of news.

Hunt said: “There is a huge opportunity here which I’m excited to take further, both digitally and in print, particularly as we cover Labour’s first months in office and see out a Conservative leadership contest.”

The Guardian

Katharine Viner has been editor-in-chief at The Guardian since 2015, when she was voted by staff to take over from Alan Rusbridger. She was previously editor-in-chief at The Guardian’s US edition.

The Observer

Under Viner’s leadership, Paul Webster edits The Observer. Viner appointed him to the role in 2018, after 20 years as deputy at the Sunday paper.

i

Oly Duff has been editor-in-chief of the i since June 2013, when he became the UK’s youngest national newspaper editor aged 29 – a title he maintains today.

Financial Times

Roula Khalaf has edited The Financial Times since January 2020, when she succeeded Lionel Barber who spent 14 years as editor.

Khalaf had been Barber’s deputy since 2016 and her previous roles at the FT included foreign editor and Middle East editor. She first joined the business newspaper in 1995.

Daily Star

Jon Clark has been seven-day editor-in-chief at the Daily Star since March 2018 after the paper was bought by Reach (then Trinity Mirror). He was previously associate editor at the Daily Mirror from 2013.

Daily Star on Sunday

Under Clark’s leadership, Denis Mann edits the Daily Star on Sunday and is a deputy on the daily. He has similarly held the role since March 2018.

The Independent

Geordie Greig was appointed as editor-in-chief of the digital-only The Independent in January 2023, just over a year after being ousted from editing the Daily Mail. He has previously edited the Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and Tatler.

He took over at The Independent from David Marley, who had been acting editor since October 2020 when Christian Broughton was promoted to managing director.

Free newspaper editors

Metro

Deborah Arthurs is editor-in-chief of Metro in print and online, having taken the lead on a new combined operation in March 2023.

She had been editor of Metro.co.uk from 2014 and a “gentle refresh” of the brand aligning print and online marked the beginning of her tenure as overall editor.

Arthurs has taken over from Ted Young, who had been editing the print newspaper for eight years.

Evening Standard

Former GQ editor of 22 years Dylan Jones was appointed editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard following a brief period as editorial consultant.

Jones began in the role on Monday 5 June 2023, becoming the news outlet’s first permanent editor in more than 18 months.

Before him, Jack Lefley was acting editor from July 2022 and Charlotte Ross had previously been acting editor from October 2021.

The last full-time editors were Emily Sheffield, who left in October 2021 after 15 months, and former chancellor George Osborne, who was in post between May 2017 and July 2020.

City AM

Former City AM editor Christian May is returning to the free business title after almost four years away at the end of August 2024.

He succeeds Andy Silvester, May’s former deputy who took on the role himself, whose last day was Thursday 18 July.

May described his previous five-year stint as editor as “the happiest and most rewarding years of my life”, adding: “I couldn’t be more excited to rejoin the team at City AM as it gears up for an ambitious era of growth and innovation.”

The post Who are the UK’s national newspaper editors? appeared first on Press Gazette.

2023 was a brutal year for the journalism industry, with at least 8,000 job cuts in the UK, US and Canada, according to Press Gazette’s analysis.

The tide continued in 2024, with around 1,000 people affected by closures and rounds of redundancies in January alone.

August saw several publishers making layoffs including Gannett, Time, Axios, Tampa Bay Times, NYPR and Hollywood Reporter.

As of 27 September, Press Gazette estimates there have been at least 2,500 jobs cut in the UK and US media this year so far.

All types of publisher features on the below list: from legacy newspaper brands to digital natives, and from commercial operations to non-profit newsrooms.

Many of the cutbacks at the start of this year have affected US media outlets but April saw a ramp up in the UK with GB News, Open Democracy, the Mail and The Times all facing redundancies of various numbers alongside The Wall Street Journal stateside.

Other UK job losses have come at Pink News, i-D Magazine and Design Week, and as part of international cuts to the likes of Vice and Business Insider.

Press Gazette will keep this page updated, with the latest additions at the top, as the definitive guide to job announced media job cuts made throughout 2024.

The list excludes any job cuts announced in 2023, which featured in our round-up of last year’s redundancies.

We will also add any significant hiring rounds to this page.

Journalism job cuts in 2024: Up-to-date list

November 2024

Associated Press – 8% of total staff

The Associated Press is planning to make cuts affecting 8% of staff, of which less than half would impact news staff, Press Gazette understands. Most of those affected are expected to be in the US.

As part of this, the AP has reached a tentative agreement with the News Media Guild to extend a voluntary buyout offer to some union staff in the US. According to a note from the AP News Guild first reported by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin, this offer applies to 121 staff aged 54.5 and over.

The Guild note said: “The company said a decline in revenue necessitated cuts company-wide among guild-covered, administrative and international staff. For Guild staff, the company said reductions could be fully achieved by offering voluntary buyouts.”

It added: “The company maintains that the buyouts are necessary to avoid layoffs and have told the Guild that reductions will be made throughout AP’s global bureaus administrative staff.”

An AP spokesperson told Press Gazette: “The Associated Press has informed the world through accurate, nonpartisan journalism for nearly two centuries – enduring not by chance, but by being intentional about adapting to industry changes. We are taking proactive steps, including making some staff reductions, as we focus on meeting the evolving needs of our customers.

“This is about ensuring AP’s important role as the only truly independent news organization at scale during a period of transformation in the media industry.”

Dotdash Meredith – 53 people

Dotdash Meredith is laying off 53 people or about 1.5% of its staff, mostly affecting those working on print products.

As reported by Axios, chief executive Neil Vogel told staff: “While we are incredibly proud of our print products and our subscriber bases are stable (or in some cases even growing), the print advertising business remains challenged. Today’s actions are directly in response to this.”

He added: “We are not closing any print magazines, nor do we anticipate doing so, and we will continue to invest in our print assets.”

G/O Media – Two people

Two writers were laid off from G/O Media’s gaming website Kotaku on 7 November, according to Aftermath.

Managing editor Carolyn Petit wrote on Bluesky: “G/O Media’s management is once again punishing workers for its own bad decisions. Management mandated that some writers stick to ‘service’ posts, and now that the numbers aren’t panning out (surprise, surprise!), two of those writers have been laid off. Cruel and misguided.”

National World – Nine people

UK regional publisher National World plans to cut nine journalist jobs in Sunderland and Manchester, according to the NUJ, although two other roles will be created.

It said two of five journalists’ roles in Sunderland would be cut under current proposals, along with one of two reporter roles in Manchester.

In addition six editor roles across eight websites would be cut, the NUJ said. Two new Metro editor roles would be created for the sites which cover Blackpool, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Preston, South Shields and Sunderland.

Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands Senior Organiser said: “Journalists at the titles are already overstretched due to inadequate staffing levels, and these proposed cuts in Sunderland and Manchester would place intolerable strain on those that remain.

“National World has justified these severe cuts by saying that page views are down, but without saying how fewer overworked journalists with less time and more stress are expected to produce more of the quality local journalism that these communities want to read.

“The proposed cutback in the number of editors who serve National World websites throughout the North of England would inevitably reduce responsiveness to local issues and concerns.

“We will be strongly supporting our members through this process and call on the company to immediately rethink the insufficient time for consultation that has been given.”

The National World group chapel passed a motion on Thursday 7 November which stated: “This chapel is dismayed at proposals by National World to cut reporting roles in Sunderland by 40%, cutting reporters in Manchester by 50%, and the effect it will have on local reporting. It also notes with concern proposals to reduce local editors, and the effect of stress on already overworked journalists at the titles producing local journalism.

“This has been exacerbated by inadequate time for consultation. The chapel calls upon the company to rethink the proposals and the effect on quality local journalism and calls for proper consultation with the NUJ and local staff about the effects of these cuts.”

City AM – ‘Small number’ of people

Free London business newspaper City AM is proposing axing its Monday print edition and putting a small number of staff at risk of redundancy.

A City AM spokesperson said: “We will continue to build the City AM brand through digital and social channels, not least through the new City AM Studios in London, while focusing print publication on the midweek days which attract the greatest footfall amongst our target audience.”

Read the full story here.

October 2024

Fandom – Unspecified number

A round of layoffs has taken place at digital publisher Fandom, which owns brands like Metacritic, GameFAQs, Screen Junkies and TV Guide. Market changes were reportedly blamed and one staffer said they believed it was the fourth set of layoffs at the publisher since 2022.

GovExec – 16 people

Sixteen people are being let go from four divisions at GovExec media group, which owns titles including US state and local government publication Route Fifty and Government Executive.

Route Fifty reporter Dan Vock said he had been laid off, adding: “It’s a shame; I had some pretty good elections stories in the works.”

Oahu Publications – 13 people

Hawaii news group Oahu Publications, owner of the island’s biggest newsbrand the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, is cutting 13 employees, including a reported six in editorial.

Hawaii News Now reported that the cuts include the Star-Advertiser’s last two staff photographers.

The Pacific Media Workers Guild said: “These losses cut deep at our ability to continue serving communities across Hawaii.”

Oahu chief executive Dennis Francis said: “On Friday, OPI made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our workforce to strengthen the company’s financial future and better position us to continue serving our readers and advertisers. OPI employs 254 people, and out of our entire workforce, 13 team members will be departing between now and November 15.

“While job loss decisions are always difficult to make, the evolution of newspaper journalism has hit everyone in the industry hard, and OPI is no exception. For local journalism to succeed and for OPI to remain the Hawaii-produced paper our community relies on, we must maintain a resilient financial business.”

Oahu was bought by Carpenter Media Group earlier this year which has made cuts at other newspaper groups across the US soon after buying them including Pamplin Media Group and Sound Publishing.

Variety – Three people

Three journalists were laid off from Variety including longtime deputy editor Meredith Woerner.

Woerner said on 17 October: “Yesterday was my last day at Variety. I was included in a round of layoffs and… I’m heartbroken. Working at Variety for the past seven years has been a privilege and an adventure.”

She added: “I am tremendously grateful to the many Variety colleagues I’ve worked with over the years. But special attention must be paid to Variety’s web team. I’ve worked in several newsrooms nationwide, and this group stands out as the most passionate, collaborative, kind, and brilliant collection of people I’ve ever seen.”

It came two months after at least four layoffs were made at Penske sister title The Hollywood Reporter, and just over a year after a further four job cuts at Variety.

BBC – 210 people

BBC News is planning to cut 185 jobs and create 55 new roles, making a net reduction of 130 roles.

The broadcaster is proposing to end interview programme Hardtalk and “flagship” tech show Click as well as the Asian Network’s bespoke news service and the 5.30am News Briefing on Radio 4.

The cuts would also mean domestic BBC radio stations would begin airing World Service summaries between midnight and 5.30am, the merging of four “On The Day” newsdesk divisions to create a “single, story-led structure” and BBC 5 Live no longer producing its own overnight news programme.

Another 25 post closures are proposed in the media operations team which supports the production of the BBC’s news, radio and some sport services.

Read the full Press Gazette story here.

NBC News – A ‘handful’ of people

Semafor media editor Max Tani reported that there have been a “handful” of layoffs across the NBCU News Group including at CNBC.

ABC News – 75 people

About 75 people at Disney-owned ABC News in the US are being laid off, as first reported by Variety.

The layoffs are believed to be split evenly between ABC’s national newsgathering operation and its local stations but no current programming will cease as a result.

ABC News president Almin Karamehmedovic told staff in a memo: “Across the various ranks of ABC News, a limited number of our colleagues are being impacted by staff reductions. As you know, this has been happening across the broader company and the industry at large in recent weeks and months.

“For us, it means shaping a team that embraces the new media landscape and evolves along with it, which we must do to continue serving our viewers.”

September 2024

Scripps – More than 200 people

US broadcaster Scripps has told staff it plans to shut down its national linear TV news business, resulting in the loss of more than 200 jobs.

CEO and president Adam Symson told staff that Scripps News’ 24/7 national news programming will wind down from 15 November although it will continue to produce output for streaming and digital platforms with live weekday coverage.

“A core reporting team, based primarily in Washington DC, also will serve Scripps’ local stations’ news operations with national and international journalism,” he said.

Symson explained that revenue in linear TV has not followed audience growth.

“Over the last two years, Scripps News’ live anchored coverage and documentary programming have grown its linear television audience, but the prospects for the necessary revenue growth haven’t materialised, despite our sales teams’ efforts. Scripps News’ current financial position is what has led me to the decision to scale back our approach to 24-hour news and over-the-air coverage.

“Amidst an already difficult linear television advertising marketplace, many brands and agencies have decided that advertising around national news is just too risky for them given the polarised nature of this country, no matter the accolades and credentials a news organisation like Scripps receives for its objectivity. I vehemently disagree, but it is hurting Scripss News, along with every other national linear and digital news outlet.”

Symson said about 50 Scripps News staffers will remain to cover local news and produce the streaming and digital content, prioritising “field reporting, our strong political coverage, investigative reporting and our digital and social media presence”.

The national Scripps News network was launched in January 2023 through a relaunch of Newsy, which the company acquired in 2014 and later took it through several evolutions including a streaming network and a free 24/7 linear network.

Gamurs Group – 30 people

Gaming media publisher Gamurs Group has cut 30 staff, blaming “unprecedented shifts” in the industry and in particular “the release of Google’s helpful content update and the decline in Google search and Discover traffic across all websites”.

Read the full Press Gazette story here.

Lee Enterprises – Around 20 people

US local news publisher Lee Enterprises is cutting ten roles from The Buffalo News, which has a newsroom of 55, according to the Investigative Post. The cuts include five buyouts or layoffs, and five vacant positions being eliminated.

Not long before that, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch laid off six members of staff while the managing editor and enterprise editor of the Missoulian was laid off and the Richmond Times-Dispatch cut two veteran sports writers.

Future – Unknown number

Job losses are undergoing a consultation process at Future plc amid the closure of titles including iMore, 3D World, All About Space and Total 911.

The titles, plus some events and Future’s external video production unit, were deemed “low to no growth assets”.

Read the full Press Gazette story here.

Daily Mail US – Up to 20 people

Up to 10% of the more than 200 editorial staff based at Mail Online in the US have been cut, with the publisher calling the redundancies “difficult but necessary”.

The publisher said it would “enable us to continue to invest in areas where we can grow our audience”.

The Sun US – Unknown number

A number of editorial staff at The Sun US have been cut. The number of jobs affected was not confirmed but Press Gazette understands more people were laid off than in the Daily Mail US cuts made on the same day (above).

The publisher, which launched its dedicated US website for The Sun in late 2019, said it needed to “reset the strategy and resize the team to secure the long term, sustainable future for The Sun’s business in the US”.

News Corp’s recent financial results cited “lower digital advertising mainly driven by a decline in traffic at some mastheads due to platform-related changes”, although this was not referring to The Sun alone.

BBC – 115 people

The BBC is planning to cut up to 115 editorial and production jobs in the Nations and Regions.

The cuts affect 40 to 45 jobs at BBC Local in England, about 25 to 30 each in Wales and Scotland, and ten to 12 in Northern Ireland.

Read the full Press Gazette story here.

August 2024

Gannett – 74 people

Gannett announced on 26 August it planned to shut down its product reviews site Reviewed.

State filings later revealed by Mass Live showed the company intends to lay off 74 employees based in Cambridge, Massachusetts – where Reviewed is headquartered – by 14 November.

A spokesperson for Reviewed told The Verge: “After careful consideration and evaluation of our Reviewed business, we have decided to close the operation. We extend our sincere gratitude to our employees who have provided consumers with trusted product reviews.”

They added: “The closure is a business decision influenced significantly by the fact that Reviewed relies heavily on search traffic and Google’s constant algorithm changes have degraded our current business model.”

Time – 22 people

Time is cutting 22 jobs across editorial, technology, sales, marketing and Time Studios, chief executive Jessica Sibley told staff on 20 August.

In an email first shared by Semafor media editor Max Tani, Sibley said: “This decision was not made lightly, but it is necessary to build a sustainable company in order to further Time’s mission.”

She said Time is facing “significant challenges from heightened competition for decreased advertising budgets to drastic shifts in consumer behaviour, changes to search and social algorithms, and overall economic uncertainty”.

Sibley said Time will put more focus on the climate, AI and health “areas of leadership where we are having success today”.

Meanwhile it is transitioning to a B2B revenue strategy with a focus on direct-sold advertising sponsorships and strategic partnerships as well as events.

The Hollywood Reporter – At least four people

The Hollywood Reporter laid off four people on Friday 16 August: executive managing editor Sudie Redmond, deputy editor Degen Pener, copy editor and film critic Sheri Linden and video editor Colin Burgess, according to The Wrap.

It follows a “small number” of editorial layoffs made in June (see below).

All Your Screens reported in July that at that point The Hollywood Reporter had “lost 11 full and part-time employees since September 2023,” many of whom were long-term employees, “while adding 15 full and part-time employees over the same period”.

The TV website claimed The Hollywood Reporter is considering changing direction from covering the industry to a “more entertainment lifestyle direction”.

There have also reportedly been an unspecified number of layoffs on parent company Penske Media Group’s product and business development side.

New York Public Radio – Around 30 people

New York Public Radio, which owns local news website Gothamist and public radio station WNYC, is aiming to lay off at least 8% of staff to help with a forthcoming $10m budget deficit, staff were told on Wednesday 14 August.

This is estimated to mean around 30 people, and staff are being asked to come forward as volunteers for layoffs before compulsory ones come into play.

It comes less than a year since New York Public Radio cut about 20 jobs and cancelled two podcasts.

NYPR president and chief executive LaFontaine Oliver told staff in a memo, reported by NYC news site Hell Gate, that: “While we have continued to control what we can control to avoid this moment—including the staff cuts in the fall of 2023, re-introducing a hiring hold, eliminating senior executive roles, forgoing annual increases in 2023, and keeping our paid internship program on hold—it hasn’t been enough to outpace increased expenses and declines in revenue.

“Our deficit continues to climb, and with our Q4 reconciliation complete and the books closed on FY24, we are now projecting a deficit for FY25 that is on course to once again reach more than $10 million by the end of the year.”

Oliver made the point that NYPR is not alone in this difficulty, saying: “For profit, nonprofit, and public media outlets alike are continuing to sustain losses wrought by declines in advertising, shifting audience behaviors, disruptions in the tech space, stubbornly high interest rates, and overall uncertainty in the markets.”

He said advertising at WNYC and classical music station WQXR has seen a “rapid decline” while “competition for philanthropic support is stiff, not only from our peers in nonprofit news outlets who are accelerating their pursuit of these same dollars in the face of increased challenges. Membership, long the hallmark of the public media model, is being strongly impacted by shifts from legacy media to digital platforms.”

Axios – About 50 people

Axios is planning to lay off about 50 people, or 10% of the company, it told staff on Tuesday 6 August.

In a memo leaked to The New York Times, chief executive Jim VandeHei said: “We’re making some difficult changes to adapt fast to a rapidly changing media landscape.”

He broke the news of the 50 positions being cut in an Axios smart brevity style “why it matters” section, explaining it was “to get ahead of tectonic shifts in the media, technology and reader needs/habits.

“This is a painful but necessary move to tighten our strategic focus and shift investment to our core growth areas.”

VandeHei said Axios will grow revenue and audience year-on-year in 2024 but “we need to stay steps ahead of changes unfolding fast across American media”.

VandeHei took full responsibility for the move, saying: “This decision is mine. It’s difficult to make, but exponentially more difficult for our departing colleagues. This isn’t a reflection on anyone’s work – it’s because of changes in the media business. If you’re understandably upset by the decision, please direct your frustration at me.”

He also described now as “the most difficult moment for media in our lifetime,” pointing to “shifting reader attention and behaviour” across platforms.

He added: “AI is pushing us to a technological inflection point where models can summarise news, at the same time Facebook, X and search are faltering as reliable traffic standbys.”

VandeHei promised “thoughtful severance packages” and said the last day for most laid-off employees would be Friday 9 August.

Tampa Bay Times – 20% of payroll (potentially up to 50 people)

Tampa Bay Times, a for-profit news title owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute that has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes, has told staff it wants to reduce its payroll by 20% and is offering buyouts.

The newsbrand has about 270 full-time employees, of whom 100 are in the newsroom. They were told layoffs will follow later in August if targets for savings are not met.

Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty told staff he is cutting his pay by 20% until the end of the year while other senior executives are taking temporary pay cuts of 10%.

He added: “While sharing this news as we mark our 140th anniversary is disappointing, we are committed to ensuring the Times can continue its dedication to robust local journalism.

“I am confident we will emerge from this challenging period as a more focused and sustainable company.”

National World – Five people

Five jobs are expected to be cut at The Scotsman: three specialist writers, a feature writer and a business reporter.

A National Union of Journalists organiser said: “National World management claim they are trying to turn the company into a ‘premium content business’, but these job cuts fall on those same talented, award-winning journalists who consistently produce excellent Scottish journalism.”

Read our full story here.

July 2024

Newsquest – Two people

Two journalists have been made redundant from We Are Sunderland, a dedicated site for news and analysis about Sunderland FC launched by Newsquest’s The Northern Echo in January.

One of the two journalists affected, Matty Hewitt, wrote on X: “Bitterly disappointed to say I’ll no longer be working for @WeAreSunlun after being made redundant… We’ve given it our all since launching back in January and covering #SAFC again has been a blast. It’s never dull.”

Newsquest told Hold The Front Page the site was not closing but did not share details about how it would operate going forward.

On Thursday 25 July, the day after Hewitt’s post, the We Are Sunderland X account told users: “Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel for free to stay up to date with all the latest #SAFC news and podcasts.”

Newsquest previously launched two other dedicated club websites, Rangers Review and The Celtic Way both in Glasgow, which have seen success and built subscriber bases.

Portland Tribune – Unknown number

Carpenter Media Group laid off an unknown number of staff at former Pamplin Media Group titles in Oregon which it bought a month earlier. The titles included the Portland Tribune and about two dozen other newspapers.

BDG – Nine staff

Bustle Digital Group (BDG) is laying off nine people, Adweek reported on 12 July.

The editors in chief of Romper and The Zoe Report were reportedly among those affected amid a consolidation of BDG’s parenting and lifestyle units.

More layoffs are expected to follow in the commercial teams.

LAist – 21 staff

LAist, a nonprofit newsroom that also houses Los Angeles radio station KPCC-FM, has cut 21 staff through layoffs and buyouts, The Wrap reported on 11 July.

The organisation’s chief content officer Kristen Muller told staff in a note in May that the cuts were aimed at lessening a $4-5m budget shortfall predicted for the next two years.

“Our efforts to reach and engage people on digital channels are succeeding. But the revenue is not following pace,” Muller wrote.

LAist earlier cut 12% of its workforce in June 2023.

CNN – Around 100 jobs

CNN chief executive Mark Thompson told staff on Wednesday 10 July that the organisation will cut around 100 jobs, equivalent to approximately 3% of its total workforce.

As well as the layoffs, Thompson explained some of the changes he plans to make at the organisation, saying he wants a subscription offering up and running before the end of the year, that the newsroom will be reorganised to integrate CNN’s domestic and international operations, and bringing more video products to the web. The Hollywood Reporter published Thompson’s letter to staff in full.

The cuts come a year and a half after the last round of major cuts at CNN under the tenure of previous chief executive Chris Licht.

Carpenter Media Group – 62 people

Carpenter Media Group has laid off a reported 62 people across local news publisher Sound Publishing, which it bought months earlier.

Reports from March indicated Sound Publishing parent Black Press had about 1,200 employees in the US and Canada. The acquisition represented Carpenter’s first move outside of the South East US and Texas.

The Everett Post, a rival to Everett Herald which was one of the affected newspapers, reported on 5 August Herald staff went on a two-day strike and while the company “refused to spare any jobs” they secured ” optional buyouts, increased severance packages and raises for remaining staff”. Ultimately 12 positions at the newspaper were cut, described as roughly half the newsroom.

The cutbacks reportedly amounted to 25% of staff in Washington State, a stronghold of Sound Publishing.

June 2024

The Daily Beast – At least 25 people

The Daily Beast has implemented voluntary buyouts accepted by 25 unionised staffers, or almost 75% of union members in the newsroom.

According to The Wrap those taking buyouts include media reporter Justin Baragona, political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery, senior national reporter Pilar Melendez and senior reporter Emily Shugerman. The outlet reported that senior staffers are heavily represented in the departures.

A further round of layoffs for non-unionised journalists is expected to follow.

A Daily Beast spokesperson said: “With such a generous severance offer, we anticipated a large number of employees would take the voluntary buyout. We are not at all surprised.

“These numbers allow us to move forward with our plan to secure the financial future of the Beast and rebuild a newsroom that will thrive in the current landscape. It’s always difficult when dedicated employees choose to step away. We thank them and wish them the best in their future endeavors.”

Evening Standard – 150 jobs

About 150 jobs are expected to be cut as a result of the Evening Standard’s planned closure of its daily newspaper edition and relaunch as a weekly title. A date for the changes and end to the daily paper has not yet been set.

The proposed redundancies reportedly include 70 editorial roles. The Standard newsroom is currently made up of around 120 full-time journalists, meaning it would be more than halved.

The cuts are also expected to affect more than 40 back office jobs and around 45 roles in its printing and distribution operations, according to The Telegraph.

The Hollywood Reporter – ‘Small number’

A “small number” of editorial layoffs were made at The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday 13 June, according to The Wrap.

Those affected included longtime TV editor Lesley Goldberg and senior editor of diversity and inclusion Rebecca Sun.

Goldberg said on X: “To the next generation of THR ‘legacies’, continue to know your worth and do your best to find work-life balance and listen to the words of wisdom of those you respect most. As for me, I’m holding onto two of the most valuable things I’ve learned in my time at THR: good things will always follow bad situations, and Henry Winkler really is as wonderful as everyone who has ever met him says he is.”

Informa Tech – Unknown number

Informa has closed two long-running B2B titles: Digital TV Europe and Television Business International.

Informa would not confirm the number of jobs affected but a farewell message from TBI editor Richard Middleton referenced several staff members including a deputy editor, senior sales manager, marketing chief art director and product manager.

Digital TV Europe staff at the time of the closure appeared to include an associate editor and a strategic account manager.

EO Media Group – 28 people

EO Media Group, an Oregon-based publisher of 15 newspapers and two magazines, said it planned to cut back the publication of several titles in July and lay off 28 employees.

It also planned to cut the hours of 19 other staff members, Oregon Live reported.

May 2024

Wall Street Journal – At least 8 people

At least eight journalists have been laid off amid further cuts at the Wall Street Journal amid a change in how it covers US news “and how we write about the big subjects that grip America”.

US news will no longer be a standalone coverage area and the East Coast, mid-US and West Coast regional bureaux are closing.

“Many” of the US news reporters are moving into other teams in the newsroom “in which they are natural fits: real estate moves to finance and economics; reporters covering state and local politics join the politics team; education moves to life and work. And some reporters will move to a new National Affairs team that will take on big topics – abortion, immigration, land use, guns, race,” editor Emma Tucker told staff.

The “speed and trending” desk is converting into a new breaking news desk and the layoffs come from this team as well as the US news team. NPR reported that at least eight people’s jobs are affected.

Journalists stuck post-it notes on the windows of Tucker’s office in protest at the job cuts.

A WSJ spokesperson said: “Our editor-in-chief is reshaping our newsroom with an eye towards digital growth, subscription growth and high-quality journalism. While we recognise change can be difficult, it is necessary to ensure we have the right structure in place to support our objectives.”

April 2024

Reader’s Digest – Unknown number

Reader’s Digest magazine has closed in the UK, its editor-in-chief of six years announced on 29 April.

Eva Mackevic said: “Unfortunately, the company just couldn’t withstand the financial pressures of today’s unforgiving magazine publishing landscape and has ceased to trade.”

The number of full-time jobs affected has not been confirmed. Mackevic told freelance writers waiting to be paid that they should be hearing from insolvency practitioners.

GB News – More than 40 people

GB News is aiming to cut 40 roles, initially via voluntary redundancies. Staff are being offered up to two months’ salary and possible payment in lieu of notice to entice them at the initial stage.

Update: The FT later reported that more than 30 volunteers came forward, meaning GB News cut its headcount from 295 to “well below 250”.

Wall Street Journal – At least 11 people

At least 11 people have been affected in the second round of layoffs at The Wall Street Journal so far this year, including four producers on the visuals desk, two social media editors, two video journalists, a senior video journalist, a video producer, and one reporter, according to The Daily Beast.

It was reported that some of the video employees were laid off as a result of the end to a Google partnership that funded the development of Youtube channels based around individual journalists or subject matters.

Open Democracy – Around 10 people

Several Open Democracy journalists announced on 10 April that they were being made redundant – including its head of news, news editor, political correspondent and two reporters.

Press Gazette understands the cuts are also affecting the commercial side of the non-profit organisation.

Chief executive Satbir Singh and editor-in-chief Aman Sethi said Open Democracy has been hit by “wider industry trends that include rising inflation and an uncertain funding environment” and which have been exacerbated by the end to some of its funding.

The business expects to return to a break even position once the redundancy round is complete.

Mail Sport – Up to 15

Mail Sport journalists were told on 10 April of an upcoming “significant restructuring” as the brand’s transition to prioritising digital continues.

Mail Newspapers global publisher of sport Lee Clayton told staff, in a memo seen by Press Gazette, that there need to be “changes in how we are set up as a desk with a digital team leading the commissioning process, supported by newspaper experts who can publish print editions to tight deadlines.

“With that in mind, we will be embarking on a significant restructuring of the department over the coming weeks.”

Press Gazette subsequently reported that the restructuring was believed to affect up to 15 sports staff including cricket correspondent Paul Newman, racing correspondent Marcus Townend, Spanish football reporter Pete Jenson and chief sports reporter Matt Hughes, as well as several production staff.

The Times – At least one person

Times chief football writer of eight years Henry Winter announced on 10 April he has been made redundant.

At the time of writing Press Gazette has not yet been able to confirm if Winter was the only person affected or if other roles have been made redundant at the same time.

March 2024

i-D Magazine – 8 people

Redundancies have been made in the UK at fashion title i-D magazine, which was saved from a struggling Vice Media by model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss in November.

Eight staff in editorial or social media were let go, as first reported by Puck News fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and confirmed by Press Gazette.

The magazine is said to be moving towards a reliance on contributors and five of those eight people have accepted a contributor role, Press Gazette understands.

Around 19 people remain on staff in the UK, including about eight in editorial and social plus the publishing director. There are plans for i-D to return to print in the autumn.

Kloss formed Bedford Media to run i-D. Bedford Media announced on 28 March it is also relaunching Life magazine under an agreement with Dotdash Meredith on a regular, but unspecified, schedule.

Deadspin – Around 11 people

G/O Media has sold sports blog Deadspin to European start-up Lineup Publishing.

All staff have been laid off as a result of the sale as Lineup plans to go with a “different content approach”. Around 11 people are affected, according to Adweek.

A memo from G/O Media chief executive Jim Spanfeller, reported by Dailymail.com, said: “I do want to make it clear that we were not actively shopping Deadspin.

“The rationale behind the decision to sell included a variety of important factors that include the buyer’s editorial plans for the brand, tough competition in the sports journalism sector, and a valuation that reflected a sizable premium from our original purchase price for the site.”

He added: “Deadspin’s new owners have made the decision to not carry over any of the site’s existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand.

“While the new owners plan to be reverential to Deadspin’s unique voice, they plan to take a different content approach regarding the site’s overall sports coverage. This unfortunately means that we will be parting ways with those impacted staff members, who were notified earlier today.”

Center for Public Integrity – Around 11 people

US non-profit news organisation the Center for Public Integrity, founded in 1989, reportedly laid off staff on 8 March.

The Center’s union said 11 people were being laid off, “more than half” the union’s unit. The New York Times later said less than half the overall staff were affected.

The NYT reported about a week earlier that the newsroom fell about $2.5m short of its budget goal of around $6m in 2023 and it was considering merging with a competitor or shutting down.

TalkTV – Unknown number

An unspecified number of redundancies were expected at TalkTV as News UK pulled the plug on its linear TV format to focus on cross-platform video content.

Update: TalkTV staff later began tweeting about their redundancies with TalkTV’s last day on linear on 26 April.

February 2024

Cord Cutters News – Three people

Cord Cutters News, a US-based website centred on streaming services and devices and largely funded by affiliate links, has laid off three people.

Editor-in-chief Roger Cheng announced on 23 February he and two reporters were leaving after their positions were “eliminated amid the company’s shift in focus to Youtube”.

“I had fun learning about the ins and outs of the streaming world, and proud of some of the bigger stories I wrote,” Cheng said.

The site’s owner Luke Bouma, who launched Cord Cutters News ten years ago, wrote on the website on the same day that they plan to “give a renewed focus on helping people know all their options to save money on TV, phone, and related product and service reviews” and “focus more heavily on our YouTube channels, including our main Cord Cutters News channel and our second channel The Breakdown with Luke, where you can find reviews of a range of products”.

WAMU – 15 people

Washington DC’s NPR affiliate WAMU is laying off 15 people and shutting down local news site DCist, Axios revealed on 23 February.

Ten new positions are being added at the same time as it invests in and priorities audio.

Chief content officer Michael Tribble told Axios: “We feel like this is the best way for us to engage and build loyalty.”

Vice – ‘Several hundred’ people

Vice told staff it was “eliminating several hundred positions” on 22 February and will no longer publish content on vice.com.

Vice chief executive Bruce Dixon said in a memo it was “no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously” and they will instead “look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model”.

Engadget – Ten people

Yahoo-owned tech site Engadget is laying off ten people and restructuring into two teams: “news and features” focusing on traffic growth and “reviews and buying advice” reporting to commerce leaders.

Editor-in-chief Dana Wollman and managing editor Terrence O’Brien announced that they were among the departures. Wollman noted: “To its credit, Yahoo has a decent severance program.”

A spokesperson told The Verge on 22 February: “Engadget has played a vital role in tech journalism for 20 years and we’re confident that these efficiencies will support future growth and set us up for the long-term as we continue to deliver the best experience for our readers.”

Buzzfeed – 16% of staff (possibly up to 190 people)

Buzzfeed is planning to cut 16% of staff, Axios revealed on 21 February, making savings of $23m. The plan follows the sale of its entertainment brand Complex for $108.6m to livestream shopping platform NTWRK, after acquiring it for $300m in 2021.

At the end of 2022 Buzzfeed had 1,368 employees. It laid off about 180 people in April 2023 with the closure of Buzzfeed News, so these latest layoffs may have affected up to around 190 people.

Now This – At least 26 people

US-based social media news publisher Now This made redundancies on 15 February, although the total is not yet known.

The journalists laid off included Mike Madden, who led the Now This Tiktok team, senior writer PJ Evans, and senior producer Jasmine Amjad.

The Now This journalists’ union said 26, or 50% of their members, had been affected.

The Intercept – 15 people

US investigative non-profit The Intercept, which was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, laid off 15 people on 15 February. Editor-in-chief Roger Hodge left in the changes.

A memo to staff said it was “facing significant financial challenges” like other media outlets and needs to make changes to become sustainable.

It said: “With the board’s approval, the leadership team has a plan that we believe paves the way for a more sustainable financial foundation for The Intercept so that we can continue to produce high-quality investigative journalism.

“We have also implemented other cost-saving measures, including significant salary cuts for the leadership team and the flattening of the management team, to minimise the impact as much as possible.”

CBS News – Around 20 people

Around 20 people have been laid off at CBS News in Washington DC, New York and Los Angeles as part of wider cutbacks at parent company Paramount Global affecting 800 people.

The CBS News staffers made redundant reportedly include chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues and senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge.

Bustle Digital Group – 16 people

Adweek has reported that seven editorial staff at Bustle Digital Group title Fatherly have been laid off and that the site will “significantly decrease” its output.

Adweek also revealed that nine full-time employees across the Bustle, Romper and Elite Daily brands were let go in January but this had not previously been reported.

Wall Street Journal – Around 20 people

Sixteen reporters and one columnist were let go in a shake-up of the Wall Street Journal’s Washington DC coverage on 1 February, according to the Daily Beast. An unspecified number of editors are also thought to have been affected.

Editor-in-chief Emma Tucker told staff: “The new Washington bureau will focus on politics, policy, defense, law, intelligence and national security. Damian Paletta, our new Washington coverage chief, starts next week and will focus our efforts in these areas to deliver work that serves the readers and stands out from the competition.

“This means the Business team in Washington is closing as is the Washington-based U.S.-China team. Stories covered by these groups will be driven by various teams in the newsroom. We are also changing the editing structure in the bureau and are closing the D.C. News Desk; those editing functions will be handled elsewhere in the bureau or on the news desk in New York.”

Journalism job cuts in January 2024

The Messenger – About 300 people

Jimmy Finkelstein’s digital news start-up The Messenger abruptly closed on Wednesday 31 January, with many staff finding out from New York Times, Semafor and Axios reporting rather than management.

Editor Dan Wakeford reportedly told staff he was “not in the loop” on Slack minutes before the channel shut down.

The website was wiped less than four hours later. Staff have spoken out about being left with no severance and no health insurance.

Tech Crunch – About eight people

Tech Crunch reportedly laid off about eight people on Monday 29 January, with Adweek reporting it plans to “refocus its coverage around the investors, founders and startups of Silicon Valley”.

Tech Crunch is also winding down its paid subscription product, which first launched in 2019 and was rebranded to its current guise in 2021. It aimed to provide “advice and analysis to help startups” with interviews, newsletters, weekly coaching sessions, ad-free access to Tech Crunch, and more.

Altfi – Up to 15 people

London-based fintech news website Altfi announced on Friday 26 January it was closing down after ten years.

In a farewell note, the team told readers: “Whilst our purpose, journalism and brand following has never been in doubt, we have faced severe headwinds over the last 18 months.”

The Evening Standard reported that Altfi listed 15 members of staff on its website.

Forbes – Less than 3% of staff (which could be up to 15 people)

Forbes staff were told on Thursday 25 January – the same day as union members were on their first day of a three-day walkout over contract negotiations – that it planned to reduced staff by less than 3%.

Forbes has 500 employees worldwide, according to its website, meaning the layoffs could affect up to 15 people.

Forbes Media chief executive Mike Federle told staff: “Over the past few years, we’ve continued to find ways to diversify our business and revenue streams, and we’ve seen significant growth as a result.

“As we continue to position ourselves to fully align with our 2024 business strategy, we have had to reprioritize some resources so that our organization can meet those goals. These changes have resulted in the difficult decision to reduce staff in certain areas.”

Business Insider – 8% of staff (which could be up to 70 people)

Business Insider told staff on Thursday 25 January it planned to make 8% of staff worldwide redundant.

It came less than a year after the Axel Springer-owned title, which then had a headcount of 950 worldwide, laid off 10% of staff in the US.

Chief executive Barbara Peng told staff that while Business Insider “closed out last year [2023] with a plan in place, a clear target audience and a vision”, 2024 would be about “making it happen and focusing our company”.

“Unfortunately, this also means we need to scale back in some areas of our organisation.”

Time magazine – Around 30 people

Around 30 people were laid off from Time magazine on Tuesday 23 January, including about 13, or 15%, of its union-represented editorial employees, according to CNN.

The union reported that the layoffs included the majority of staff at the publisher’s news publication for children, Time for Kids.

Time chief executive Jessica Sibley told staff: “We have worked to manage expenses in other areas of our business aggressively to minimize the impact of this decision on our employees. All of these actions have moved us considerably closer to being a profitable company, an achievement we must reach to realize Time’s full potential.

“While this was not an easy decision to make, it is the necessary step we must take in order to drive our business forward and improve our financial position as an organization.”

Pink News – Nine staff at risk

LGBTQ+ publisher Pink News put nine roles at risk of redundancy in its editorial, brand and people teams. The roles at risk include news editor, entertainment editor, weekend editor, head of brand, and marketing manager.

The UK-based publisher blamed an “unpredictable financial year… which has necessitated strategic changes to our growth priorities”. The company is leaning into video, it said.

Los Angeles Times – 115 people

The Los Angeles Times announced it was laying off at least 115 people, or more than 20% of the newsroom, on Tuesday 23 January.

The title’s owner Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong said the cuts were necessary because it could “no longer lose $30 million to $40 million a year without making progress toward building higher readership that would bring in advertising and subscriptions to sustain the organization”, the newspaper reported.

The Washington bureau, photography and sports departments and video unit were particularly hard-hit, it added.

Soon-Shiong has owned the Times for almost six years, after buying it from Tribune Publishing along with the San Diego Union-Tribune for $500m.

It came just six months after Los Angeles Times cut 74 roles in the newsroom, or about 13%.

Mediahuis Ireland – Around 50 people

Mediahuis Ireland is seeking voluntary redundancies with the aim of cutting costs by €4m annually. Compulsory redundancies could follow if there is not enough staff uptake.

The publisher of newspaper titles including the Irish Independent, Sunday World and Belfast Telegraph, as well as regionals such as The Kerryman and Wexford Times told staff on Tuesday 23 January it was seeking to reduce headcount by around 10%.

Around 549 people work for Mediahuis Ireland – 338 in journalism roles and 211 in areas like technology, HR and finance, according to the Irish Independent. Around 50 jobs are therefore expected to go, with 30 in editorial.

Chief executive Peter Vandermeersch told staff: “I am convinced that our strategy is the right one: to restructure our business to make this a leaner, more streamlined news organisation with the most efficient processes and systems possible, while continuing to produce the highest quality journalism and diversifying our revenues to build a sustainable future for our company.”

It comes less than a year after a previous round of voluntary redundancies. Its current headcount is already down by about 35% from when Mediahuis bought Irish news publisher Independent News and Media in 2019.

Sports Illustrated – Most, if not all, staff

Most, if not all, of Sports Illustrated’s staff were laid off after the publisher’s failure to pay a licensing fee saw the licence revoked.

The exact numbers of job losses are unclear but it was a heavy hit to the 70-year-old magazine. The Sports Illustrated Union said it had been told of plans to lay off “a significant number, possibly all”, of its members, who work in editorial, on Friday 19 January. According to NPR, the union represented 82 Sports Illustrated employees, or 80% of staff.

Sports Illustrated owner Authentic Brands Group said it had ended its licensing agreement with The Arena Group, with Front Office Sports reporting this was because Arena missed a $3.75m payment three weeks earlier.

Authentic Brands Group bought Sports Illustrated’s IP for $110m in 2019 and soon began licensing it to Arena in a ten-year deal.

Union members were reportedly given 90 days’ notice, during which time there is a chance the licensing deal is resolved, but non-union members were let go with immediate effect.

Update: Minute Media, which took over publishing Sports Illustrated in March, reportedly hired back more than 90% of editorial employees who worked for it under The Arena Group.

Design Week – Three people

Centaur Media closed Design Week on 19 January. Three editorial roles were lost as a result.

The 38-year-old online magazine told readers that Centaur was shifting strategy to its “core audience of marketers, and focuses on training, information, and intelligence”. It had closed in print in 2011.

Pitchfork – At least 12 people

Conde Nast folded the operation of music website Pitchfork into men’s title GQ, with chief content officer Anna Wintour saying: “This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company.”

Pitchfork editor-in-chief Puja Patel left the company as a result on Tuesday 17 January, along with at least 11 other employees according to AP which reported that ten of those were journalists, leaving an editorial staff of eight.

Pitchfork, which launched in 1996, had been owned by Conde Nast since 2015.

Univision – Around 200 people

Televisa Univision cut around 200 jobs at Univision, a Hispanic network broadcaster in the US, on Wednesday 17 January.

The company said in a statement: “The evolution of the media landscape has required us to implement efficiencies and cost-cutting measures to meet existing demands and in turn, strengthen our business for the future. As a result, Televisa Univision has made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of positions in the US across various business units.”

Cuts affected on-air personalities in news and sport as well as roles in departments like production, sports, digital, and communications.

NBC News – 50 to 100 people

Around 50 to 100 people were laid off at NBC News on Thursday 11 January, with a 60-day notice period and severance packages.

NBC News and its news channel MSNBC made a similar round of redundancies a year ago in January 2023, with about 75 people affected.

The Messenger – Around 24 people

Digital news start-up The Messenger, which was launched by former owner of The Hill Jimmy Finkelstein in May last year, cut about two dozen jobs at the start of the year.

The New York Times said it was a cost-cutting measure as a result of dwindling cash reserves, blamed on a difficult advertising market.

Major journalism launches/new job roles in 2024

The Lever – Nine people – April

US reader-supported investigative news outlet The Lever has expanded with the addition of nine journalists.

It began life as a two-person newsletter in April 2020 and now has a team of 19.

Managing editor Joel Warner said: “We’re thrilled that our reader-supported news outlet continues to grow and to attract high-caliber journalism talent that is breaking open huge stories week after week.

“This is a difficult time for the media industry, but our subscribership and our commitment to accountability journalism are making this expansion possible.”

The new additions include a senior investigative reporter, senior enterprise reporter, three general reporters, a senior podcast producer, a contributing news designer, a social media and marketing producer, and an editorial fellow.

The Digital Frontier – 20 people – February

A new technology newsbrand, The Digital Frontier, is launching in London with a 20-strong team, of which nine are editorial roles producing a website, twice-weekly podcast and daily newsletter.

The post News media job cuts 2024 tracked: Dotdash Meredith lays off 53 people while AP plans buyouts appeared first on Press Gazette.

Most news publishers who expressed a preference endorsed Kamala Harris as US president, yet Donald Trump has been returned to office.

The margin of victory for Trump, winning both the electoral college and the popular vote, also surprised many in the media and appeared to be fuelled by a campaign which focused more on courting popular podcasters than it did legacy media.

We asked senior leaders at major US news publishers what the lessons are from the presidential election on connecting with audiences.

The Guardian’s US editor Betsy Reed suggested “so-called outrage cycles” may not deserve as much coverage in future as they did not prove to be deal breakers to voters, but she believes the media did do a “pretty good job” conveying the stakes of the election.

Francesca Barber, executive director of global newsroom strategy at Politico, said trust is gained by “listening, not just opining”.

Geordie Greig, editor of The Independent which has been quickly expanding in the US, said the election should remind the media of the importance of short-form video.

Katie Davies, editor of Dailymail.com, said the election only underscored that Americans are “consuming their news in more ways than ever before”.

BBC News director of digital Naja Nielsen said the election showed it is easy to become over-reliant on polls and “nothing beats boots on the ground”.

And The Hill’s director of audience and social media Sarakshi Rai said “being fair and nonpartisan” will help build trust with audiences and show there is not “some kind of underlying agenda”.

Read on to see each of their answers in full.

‘We need to reconsider reporting of outrage cycles’

Betsy Reed, US editor – The Guardian

“Overall, I actually think the media did a pretty good job reporting on the stakes of this election. But we did make a few mistaken assumptions this time around: that people would turn away from Trump because of his dangerous rhetoric and outrageous statements; and that the enthusiasm we observed at Kamala’s rallies would be sufficient to draw voters out, outweighing very real, well-documented concerns voters had about the economy, inflation, and the party in power.

“To be fair, The Guardian and the media did extensively cover voter dissatisfaction with the economy – in particular in our “Confidence Question” series – but we need to seriously consider how much reporting resources we devote to so-called outrage cycles moving forward, when it’s clear those things aren’t ultimately decisive to undecided voters.”

Trust ‘means listening, not just opining’

Francesca Barber, executive director of global newsroom strategy at Politico

“The way people are consuming media and information is changing rapidly – this election cycle saw the power of podcasts and loyalty with relatable, trusted voices amongst specific audiences. Think Call Her Daddy and Joe Rogan as major interview moments for both Trump and Harris.

“Trust is important here: it means listening, not just opining. It means having a direct relationship to audiences in the formats they are consuming (e.g. video, audio, shareable direct messages). And it means being clear who your audience is and building expectations and habit throughout the year, so that during an election cycle, they come to you.

“At Politico, our audience relies on our voice and authority to inform their daily professional lives. They rely on our geographic breadth to contextualize major global moments and our depth of reporting in each local market, to highlight the shifting policy and power dynamics beyond the horse race of an election.

“Now, we must continue to be thoughtful and creative with how and when we’re reaching our readers as we continue to keep up with the changing consumption and technological habits of our readers.”

‘Short-form video is key’

Geordie Greig, editor of The Independent

“The US election showed that, despite Trump’s attacks against many media companies, serious, independent journalism cuts through and still connects, as demonstrated by our record month in the US in September, in which we became the number one British brand in America.

“While we often think of America as being polarised, the exit polling also demonstrated just how many voters see themselves as independent. So there’s clearly a significant appetite for unbiased, authoritative news, and an opportunity for trusted brands to deliver this.

“Readers across the political spectrum seem increasingly to distrust what candidates are saying, but they still want to feel that they know the facts about the issues.

“More broadly, this election showed news brands what we already know. Audiences don’t consume news in the same way they did even ten years ago. Short-form video is key, and you need to meet audiences where they are. That’s why we stepped Independent TV into a higher gear and renewed our focus on platforms like TikTok.

“It remains to be seen whether the industry will experience a second ‘Trump bump,’ but all we can do is continue reporting, and finding our audience wherever they consume news. What we do is on the tin: we will stay independent.”

Audience wants ‘hard facts and unbiased news coverage’

Sarakshi Rai, director of audience and social media – The Hill

“The Hill paid close attention to what our audience wanted from political media outlets this election cycle – hard facts and unbiased news coverage along with data and in-depth analysis. The media needs to embrace being fair and nonpartisan in order to build trust with readers of all political stripes and convince them that there’s not some kind of underlying agenda to their coverage.

“There’s no denying that trust in media outlets has been low this election cycle and at The Hill we followed an editorial policy of not telling our readers what to think but allowing them to understand the facts and make up their own minds. It’s essential that news organisations reach audiences where they are at, not force them to meet them where they want them to be with their coverage that might skew one way or another.

“At The Hill we met our audience exactly where they were, whether it was with our video coverage, data analysis or editorial coverage. It’s not a one size fits all approach, and we made sure we had elements that people wanted from media outlets. Our partnership with Decision Desk also drove audience interest with a data and facts-first approach with polling aggregate numbers throughout the election cycle as well as a forecasting model and live election results.

“And as we looked deeper at the numbers, the results speak for themselves between Election Day and the day after – we not only gave our audiences what they wanted but grew it. TheHill.com saw 9.44 million unique visitors, over 18.34 million page views and 3.43 million video starts on the site.”

‘Americans are consuming their news in more ways than ever before’

Katie Davies, editor-in-chief – Dailymail.com

Dailymail.com saw record levels of traffic on election day, one of its highest-performing days in the US to date, and direct homepage traffic was the highest it had been for two years.

Press Gazette understands Daily Mail Tiktok videos were viewed a record 6.5 billion times in October and 5.3 billion times in September, and its election coverage on the platform received 427 million video views and led to almost 400,000 new followers.

The brand worked with polling firm JL Partners which projected a 287-251 win for Trump, which turned out to be closer to his actual 312 – 226 win than many other pollsters.

Katie Davies said: “This election cycle underscores the fact that Americans, now more than ever, are consuming their news in more ways than ever before. The Daily Mail US broke dozens of exclusives, sat down with insiders and people in power, and published some of the most accurate polling out there and we saw record-breaking amounts of traffic to our website leading up to and throughout the election, particularly on our mobile homepage. But we’ve also seen a tremendous appetite from our users to consume their news in new ways, be that TikTok, our social channels, video and podcasts and more.

“Under the Trump administration we’re going to continue doing what the Daily Mail does best – focus on the engaging stories our readers want to talk about in their daily lives – at the office, the bar, the school run etc. Our election numbers are a clear vote from readers that they love what we are doing and we will continue to hold those in power to account while maintaining our fun, audacious and distinctive Daily Mail voice.”

‘It’s easy to get over-reliant on polls’

Naja Nielsen, director of digital, channel and weather – BBC News

“I oversaw the BBC’s coverage from our Washington Bureau and, I have to say, I think BBC News overall covered it well.

“What in my opinion made BBC News stand out from especially a lot of the US media, was our impartiality and our focus on the voters.

“We also reported and analysed various polls, but it’s easy to get over-reliant on polls and as we have seen, once again, when it comes to gauging the mood among the voters nothing beats boots on the ground and our correspondents and reporters talking to the voters everywhere.

“On top of that first-hand reporting, our Voter Voices initiative proved very valuable. It’s a panel of voters with all types of views and backgrounds that feed into our reporting and help us present a range of views. There are many nuances in the viewpoints of Republicans as well as Democrats and all those who support neither and we wanted to capture that breadth.

“We are also lucky to have a team of expert Washington bureaux who know the country and its politics inside out and we were able to give audiences the benefit of a team at the top of their game – explaining the nuances of the US system and culture to a global audience.

“Our commitment to impartial and transparency also makes us uniquely placed in the US, as well as in the UK. Our investment in BBC Verify US made it possible for us to counter misinformation, and our curious and critical approach to all opinions is something a lot of people are looking for in these often very divisive times.

“This saw us reach huge numbers of people who were coming to us for a source of news they could trust – to cut through the noise and get a clear view. We never take sides, and I genuinely see all of our journalists reporting with open, curious and critical minds. I was following a lot of UK and US coverage and when it became clear, Trump would win, you could hear the tone change across most of US Election shows in one way or another, whereas our team kept being on the ball, reporting the story with no agenda.

“On Tuesday and Wednesday alone our digital journalism attracted around 61 million users – showing what an appetite there is, not only for news on the US election, but for the clarity and impartial view that only the BBC can give.”

The post Polls, trust and video shorts: Lessons for news publishers from US election appeared first on Press Gazette.

Reach-owned Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail was the only paid-for title to see any minor circulation growth in October, according to the latest public ABC figures.

The Sunday Mail’s average weekly circulation was up 0.5% month-on-month in October to 44,382.

However it still saw year-on-year decline of 16%, joining the rest of the Reach-owned national newspapers which all saw annual decline of 15-20%.

Of the rest of the publicly audited national newspapers, the Mail on Sunday saw the smallest month-on-month decline of -0.1% to 568,734 and the biggest was at Scottish title the Daily Record, down 1.6% to 46,128.

DMGT-owned newspapers Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the i all kept their annual print circulation declines in single digits in October, as did the Financial Times.

The Daily Mail, with an average daily print circulation of 667,662 in October, and the Mail on Sunday both saw year-on-year drops of 8%.

The i was down 4% to 123,155 while the Financial Times saw a drop of 3% to 108,964 (of which 29% were bulk copies distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels).

National newspaper circulations in October 2024 (ABC) with monthly and yearly changes – this page will be updated monthly:

Read more: Widening gulf between weekday and Saturday UK newspaper sales revealed

The column for bulks refers to copies which are circulated for free at venues such as airports and hotels.

The above figures do not include the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep their ABC circulations private since the start of 2020. The Guardian and Observer joined them in September 2021.

The last ABC figures we have for these titles are as follows:

• The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)
• The Sun on Sunday: 1,013,777 (March 2020)
• The Sunday Times: 647,622 (March 2020)
• The Times: 365,880 (March 2020)
• Daily Telegraph: 317,817 (December 2019)
• Sunday Telegraph: 248,288 (December 2019)
• The Observer: 136,656 (July 2021)
• The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)

If these titles have fallen in line with rest of the industry their current circulations as of February 2024 would be as follows:

• The Sun: 700,000
• The Sun on Sunday: 600,000
• The Sunday Times: 322,000
• The Times: 180,000
• Daily Telegraph: 190,000
• Sunday Telegraph: 125,000
• The Observer: 80,000
• The Guardian: 60,000

2022 in focus

These charts show UK national newspaper circulation over the 12 months to March 2023.

2000-present

We have also charted the longer-term change in ABC circulation over the past 20 years across the UK press.

These charts show the extent of the print decline from The Sun reaching 3.76m in 2000 and the Sun on Sunday's launch in February 2012 with a short-lived 3.21m before dropping to just above 2m.

Meanwhile, though the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail once were competitive in print reach at around 2.3m-2.4m in 2000, the Mail now has a circulation three times the size of its former rival.

The Sunday tabloids all saw a spike in 2011 after the closure of the News of the World but few retained the readers – the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror did best at doing so, but largely lost them when the Sun on Sunday launched.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the UK's most popular newspapers:

September 2024

The circulation of the Financial Times was up 5% between August and September, the latest ABC figures show.

The FT had a circulation of 109,966, marking a drop of 2% compared to September 2023 - the smallest annual decline among the publicly audited national newspapers.

However the FT has the largest proportion of bulks (copies given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) which were on 31,491 or 29% of its total circulation, and non-UK copies which made up 52% of its ABC total (57,358 copies).

The next smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 4% to 124,075 of which 3% were bulk copies.

The biggest annual decline was at Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 20% to an average of 50,394 weekly copies sold. The Daily Star Sunday (64,645) and Scottish title Sunday Mail (44,144) were both down 18%.

On a monthly basis, the FT was the only title to see growth although free papers Metro (951,154) and City AM (68,144) both stayed steady.

The biggest monthly drops were at the Daily Mirror (212,300), Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail, all down 4%.

August 2024

The Daily Star Sunday now has a smaller circulation than the free City AM for the first time since the business newspaper launched 19 years ago.

The average Daily Star Sunday weekly circulation fell by 2% month-on-month and 16% year-on-year in August to 66,994.

London-only title City AM stayed steady compared to July on 68,144 and grew by 5% compared to August last year, with an average of 68,144 on Mondays to Thursdays.

The majority of the paid-for newspapers in our monthly ABC circulation round-up saw a double-digit year-on-year drop in August, led by fellow Reach tabloid the Sunday People which was down 20% to 51,961.

The only paid-for newspaper not to fall on an annual basis was the Financial Times, which stayed steady on 104,826. Of these 31,324 are bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels).

Compared to July, the Daily Record was narrowly the only paid-for title not to see a drop, staying steady on 48,472.

The Evening Standard began its transition away from being a daily newspaper at the end of July when it dropped its Monday and Friday editions. Nonetheless it dropped its distribution by only 1%, albeit 10% year-on-year, to 273,631.

July 2024

The Sunday People suffered the biggest decline in print circulation among the UK's national newspapers in July.

The weekly Reach tabloid's ABC circulation was down by 20% year-on-year and 2% month-on-month to 52,350.

The only national newspaper to see year-on-year growth in July was the Financial Times, which was up 2% to 108,070 despite seeing the joint biggest month-on-month decline of 2%.

Compared to last July, the FT's newsstand sales were down but paid subscriptions, bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) and non-UK copies were up.

Among the rest, the smallest annual decline was at the i, which was down 3% to 127,526. The i also had the biggest month-on-month growth, of 2%.

July marked the Evening Standard's final month printing five days a week as it phases out its daily edition ahead of going weekly. It dropped its Monday and Friday editions at the end of the month.

Across the month the Standard had an average print distribution of 276,885 - up 1% month-on-month but down 9% year-on-year.

June 2024

The average daily print circulation of the i is now higher than the Daily Star's for the first time in its history.

The change comes two months after the i's circulation was also higher than the Sunday Express for the first time as the DMGT-owned title's print readership has stayed relatively steady for several months.

In June the i reported an ABC print circulation of 125,545 - narrowly edging above the Daily Star on 125,525.

The i, which launched in October 2010, saw growth compared to May of 1% and and annual decline of 14%.

Meanwhile the Daily Star reported a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year fall of 15%.

Pre-Covid, in the first half of March 2020, the Daily Star had an average circulation of 276,453 - at the time 28% higher than the i on 215,640.

The biggest circulation drops in June were at the Sunday People (20% down to 53,501), Daily Star Sunday (18% down to 68,003) and Sunday Mail (18% down to 46,794).

As well as the i, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation, up 2% month-on-month and steady year-on-year at 110,736. Although the FT's paid newsstand sales were up marginally (to 12,534) its subscription copies were down 1% (to 9,069).

Free London daily City AM upped its distribution year-on-year by 1% to 68,112 and stayed steady compared to May.

May 2024

The Evening Standard dropped its distribution by 12% in May compared to the previous year as it announced plans to end its daily publication and go weekly in print.

This was a 12% year-on-year drop for the second month running although its distribution stayed steady between April and May.

The Standard distributed an average of 275,683 copies per day in May, according to the latest ABC figures.

As recently as October 2022 the Standard was distributing more than 400,000 copies a day. It has been below 300,000 since October 2023.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic it was distributing around 800,000 copies per day.

Meanwhile, every paid-for national newspaper saw their print circulation decline in May - although it should be noted that the year-on-year comparison is affected by the boost several Sunday newspapers saw last year from the King's coronation.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People saw the biggest drop compared to May 2023, with its average circulation down by 24% to 54,150.

Also dropping by more than a fifth year-on-year were fellow Reach weeklies the Sunday Express (down 22% to 124,581) and Daily Star Sunday (down 21% to 69,200).

The only paid-for newspapers to fall by less than 10% year-on-year were the i (down 5% to 124,904) and Financial Times (down 1% to 108,824).

On a month-by-month basis, the Sunday Mail in Scotland was the only title to see growth compared to April, as its circulation was up 1% to 48,292.

The biggest month-on-month decline was of 4% at the Daily Mirror (to 225,983), Daily Record (to 49,673) and Sunday Post (to 34,581).

Free newspaper Metro kept its distribution steady both month-on-month and year-on-year while London free business newspaper City AM grew marginally year-on-year and stayed steady from April into May.

April 2024

The i's print circulation is now higher than the Sunday Express for the first time in its history, according to the latest ABC data.

In April the circulation of the i, which launched in 2010, stayed steady compared to the previous month and fell by 5% year-on-year to 126,266.

The Sunday Express fell by 2% month-on-month and 17% year-on-year to 125,990, resulting in it falling one place down our monthly table.

The biggest year-on-year print circulation decline was again at the Sunday People, down 21% to 55,526. The largest month-on-month drop was of 4% at the Daily Star Sunday, to 69,766.

The Financial Times was, as in March, the only paid-for newspaper not to see annual decline, staying steady compared to April last year. Its average circulation was 109,868 made up of 12,068 newsstand copies, 9,365 subscriptions, 31,155 bulk copies (distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels) and 57,280 copies in other countries.

Of the rest of the paid-for newspapers, the i was the only one to see single-digit decline. Its DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday each declined by 10% year-on-year to 699,240 and 586,187 respectively.

March 2024

The Mail on Sunday's average print circulation fell below 600,000 in March, according to ABC.

The Sunday newspaper's circulation fell by 1% compared to February and 10% versus March 2023, reaching 594,414.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation is now about half of where it was in October 2017 - six and a half years ago.

However, in that time there has been a notable shift in its circulation mix with subscriptions making up a greater slice of the pie: newsstand sales are down 5% to 524,545 but paid subscriptions are up 404% to 69,869.

Meanwhile in Scotland the Sunday Mail, owned by Reach, fell below a circulation of 50,000 - reaching 48,597 following a month-on-month decline of 3%. This is more than half of its pre-Covid circulation of 104,608.

Also in March, the Daily Star grew its average circulation by 3% month-on-month to 134,924 while the Daily Mirror (237,233) and Financial Times (109,181) were up 1%. Others were steady or down by up to 3%.

The ABC figures are average per issue, meaning they should not be skewed by the fact March was a longer month than February, with one extra weekend.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the Sunday People, down 21% to 57,163, followed by the Sunday Mail and Sunday Post (35,848) each down 17%. The only paid-for title not to see decline was the Financial Times, which stayed steady compared to March last year.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday's digital editions stayed steady month-on-month, with active views per issue of 88,176 and 89,639 respectively.

February 2024

The Financial Times saw the biggest month-on-month drop in print circulation among the publicly audited national newspapers in February.

The FT had an average circulation of 108,125 in February according to ABC, down 6% compared to January - although it lost just 0.4% compared to a year earlier.

Subscriptions (9,255) were down 12% month-on-month to 9,255 while newsstand sales (12,227) were down 7% to 12,227 and global circulation (55,781) was down 8% to 55,781. But bulks (free copies distributed at locations like airports and hotels) were steady on 30,862.

The FT also had a digital edition circulation of 16,403, up 5% month-on-month.

The Daily Mail digital edition had average actively-viewed copies of 88,346 in February, up 1% month-on-month and 3% year-on-year.

The Mail on Sunday’s digital edition was on 90,062, up 1% and 2% respectively.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are top of the table among the paid-for newspapers that have their ABC circulations published, with circulations of 705,311 and 600,311 respectively.

Their next rival in the public table, the Daily Mirror, is several hundred thousand behind on 234,492.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People again reported the biggest annual decline, down 22% to 57,670 - the only drop in this set of figures of more than a fifth. It was followed by sister title Daily Star Sunday, down 18% to 72,363.

Free London title City AM was the only newspaper to grow its distribution year-on-year in February, upping its print run by 1% to 68,009. Month-on-month it was up by the same percentage and was joined by fellow free title the Evening Standard, which had a circulation of 277,238. The Standard, however, was down 11% compared to the year before.

January 2024

The Sunday People was the only national newspaper to see a print circulation decline of more than a fifth in January 2024.

The Reach tabloid had an average weekly circulation of 58,831 in January - down 22% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month.

Sister Reach titles the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star, Sunday Mail, Daily Record and Sunday Express all saw their circulations down by 15 to 17% year-on-year, as did DC Thomson's Sunday Post.

The only paid-for newspaper to stay steady year-on-year was the Financial Times, on 115,118. Its newsstand sales were down 14% but subscriptions were up 3%, bulk copies (those distributed in locations like hotels and airports) were up 1% and non-UK readership was up 4%.

The FT's actively purchased sales in the UK and Ireland averaged 24,000 with the rest of the circulation in Europe, Asia and the US.

The free Metro (953,856) and City AM (67,215) papers also kept their circulations about the same as in January 2023.

Month-on-month, the Daily Star Sunday saw the biggest decline of 8% to 73,103. The FT was up 1% as was free London paper the Evening Standard (277,238).

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail’s digital edition had an average circulation of 87,571 in January, up 1% month-on-month and 2% year-on-year. The Mail on Sunday's digital edition was up 2% month-on-month and 1% year-on-year to 89,326.

The FT published a digital edition figure of 15,594, down 6% year-on-year but up 12% month-on-month. This figure includes FT Premium and FT e-paper subscribers and customers through distributors Barnes and Noble, Media Carrier and Gold Key Media.

December 2023

December was a reasonable month for print circulation among the UK's national newspapers, with some experiencing monthly growth.

Scottish weekly the Sunday Mail saw the biggest growth compared to November, up 5% to 52,842, followed by the Financial Times (up 4% to 114,338), Daily Star Sunday (up 3% to 79,218) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 733,577).

The Sunday Post and Daily Express also grew by up to 1% while the Daily Mirror and the i fell by less than 1%.

Decline continued across the board when compared to December 2022, however, but it was lower than usual at some titles.

Often several newspapers see their circulation fall by about a fifth year-on-year but in December the only newspaper down that much was the Sunday People (a fall of 19% to 60,470).

Behind that, the Daily Star (136,909) and Daily Record (54,379) were both down by 14%.

The smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 7% to 128,110.

The Telegraph, which no longer publishes its total circulation (see below), has revealed it had an average weekly subscription number of 1,035,710 in December, made up of 117,586 in print, 688,012 in digital, and 230,112 across Telegraph Wine Cellar, Telegraph Puzzles and Chelsea Magazine Company.

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail's digital edition had an average circulation of 86,744 in December (up 2% month-on-month and 5% year-on-year) while the Mail on Sunday was on 87,910 (up 1% and 3% respectively).

November 2023

The i was the only UK national newspaper to avoid month-on-month print circulation decline in November.

The DMGT-owned newspaper stayed steady, growing 0.1% compared to October to an average circulation of 128,566.

The i also saw the second-smallest year-on-year drop of 7.4%, behind only the Financial Times which fell by just 0.3% to 110,220.

[Read more: As digital subs overtake print at i, editor Oliver Duff explains why future is bright for title]

The FT's newsstand sales (12,822) and paid subscriptions (9,373) were both down but the newspaper increased its bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels (32,001) and global distribution (56,024).

Free London newspaper City AM also stayed steady both month-on-month and year-on-year, with an average distribution of 67,940.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Sunday Post (down 2.7% to 38,160), the Sunday Mirror (down 1.9% to 182,978), the Sunday Mail (down 1.9% to 52,104) and the FT (down 1.7%).

The biggest annual drops were at the Sunday People (down 20.3% to 61,570), the Sunday Post (down 18.1%) and Daily Star Sunday (down 17.4% to 76,868).

October 2023

The Financial Times saw the smallest change in its print circulation in October, according to the latest monthly analysis of UK national newspapers.

The business newspaper grew by 0.4% month-on-month and declined by 0.3% in October to an average daily circulation of 112,139.

This included a slight increase (2% month-on-month and 6% year-on-year) in bulk copies distributed for free at locations like airports and hotels. These made up 29% of the FT's circulation in October.

The i, where bulks make up 1% of its circulation, had the next smallest annual decline in October of 8% to 128,494.

No other paid-for UK national newspapers that continue to publicly report their circulation figures still distribute bulk newspapers.

The biggest year-on-year circulation declines among paid-for titles were at Reach tabloids with a 22% drop at the Sunday People to 62,143 and a 19% fall at the Daily Star Sunday to 78,051.

Free title the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop overall, with its distribution down 27% compared to October 2022 to 293,663. This is the first time its distribution has gone below 300,000 since October 2009 when it became a free newspaper.

September 2023

Many UK national newspapers reported steeper-than-usual annual print circulation declines in September due to comparisons with the previous year when the death of The Queen appeared to lead to an uptick in sales.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday both saw their circulation fall by 17% year-on-year in September - up from an average decline of mostly somewhere between 10% and 13% each month in the year so far.

The biggest year-on-year decline among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People (down 24% to 62,712) followed by sister Reach title Daily Star Sunday (down 22% to 79,198).

Meanwhile the i, also owned by Mail publisher DMG Media, saw its average circulation fall below 130,000 in September to 129,133. Its earliest available ABC figures for January 2011, three months after its launch, show it was then on 133,472.

The Financial Times was the only newspaper to avoid a month-on-month circulation decline, growing by 7% to 111,738. It also reported the smallest drop compared to September last year, down 2%.

August 2023

Annual declines in print national newspaper circulations across the board continued in August.

The biggest year-on-year drops were at the Daily Star Sunday (down 22.4% to 80,124) and the Sunday People (down 21.8% to 64,605).

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, down 1% to 104,423 – of which 30,616 were bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels.

London business newspaper City AM did increase its free distribution by three-quarters compared to last summer, with an average of 64,729 copies distributed each Monday to Thursday in its first month of ownership by online retailer THG. It fell by 4% month-on-month.

The Daily Record was marginally the only paid-for title not to see a month-on-month drop in circulation. All others fell by up to 2% compared to July.

July 2023

Every national newspaper saw a year-on-year print circulation decline in July, according to the latest ABC figures.

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, which fell by 1% to 106,038. The biggest drop was at the Sunday People, with the Reach tabloid falling by 22% to 65,460, followed by sister title the Daily Star Sunday down 20% to 80,847.

Free London newspaper the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop to its distribution overall, down 24% to 302,602. Fellow free London title, City AM, did see growth, increasing its distribution by 81%, compared to a dip last summer, to 67,600.

The FT did, however, have the biggest month-on-month decline of 4%. Three titles grew their circulations by a fraction of a percent compared to June: the Mail on Sunday, the i and City AM.

June 2023

The Sunday Mirror's print newspaper circulation fell below 200,000 for the first time in June.

In January 2000, the earliest data available on the ABC website, the Sunday Mirror had a print circulation of two million. By January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began, the paper was on 367,244.

Also in June, the Sunday People, sister title to the Sunday Mirror, saw its sales move below the free distribution of London business newspaper City AM.

City AM fell by 15% year-on-year to 67,602, staying steady month-on-month compared to May, while the Sunday People fell by 21% and 6% respectively to 66,950.

The smallest year-on-year declines were at the i and the Financial Times, which both saw their circulations fall by 5% to 130,945 and 111,014 respectively.

The biggest declines were of the Evening Standard's free distribution (down 29% year-on-year to 308,874) and the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, the FT's circulation was up 1% compared to May while Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady. The biggest drops were at the Sunday Express and Mail on Sunday, both down 9% to 145,543 and 637,437 respectively.

May 2023

The Sunday Express rose above the Daily Star's print circulation in May as several Sunday newspapers saw a month-on-month boost, likely as a result of souvenir coverage of King Charles III's coronation.

Charles and Camilla officially became King and Queen on Saturday 6 May, with many Sunday titles producing souvenir editions with extra pages and wraparound front covers on the following day.

The Queen's death and funeral in September similarly led to a boost in audience both in print and online.

In May, the Mail on Sunday grew by 7% month-on-month, the Sunday Express was up 6%, the Sunday Mirror by 3%, the Sunday People by 2%, and the Daily Star Sunday by 1%. All continued to fall on a year-on-year basis, however, although by a lower percentage rate than the monthly reports frequently show.

At the Mail on Sunday, paid single copies grew by 7% to 622,360 and subscriptions rose by 8% to 75,585. However at the Sunday Express the boost primarily came from newsstand sales, which were up by 6% to 150,909, whereas subscriptions, on which the title relies less, were up by only 1% to 9,182.

The boost at the Sunday Express took it above the Daily Star's circulation for the first time since January 2021 and May 2020, both anomalous months. Before May 2020, the daily title had been higher in our ranking since December 2011.

April 2023

Print circulation decline continued across the board at the UK's national newspapers in April.

The biggest drop among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People, down 22% to 69,990. London's free Evening Standard, however, saw a greater fall of 31% to 311,216.

The smallest decline was at the FT, which dropped 2% year-on-year to an average monthly circulation of 109,637. It is the only ABC-audited newspaper to distribute a significant number of bulk free copies at locations such as airports and hotels as part of its circulation, but these fell by 9% so the smaller decline cannot be attributed to that portion of its circulation.

The only newspapers to grow by 1% between March and April were the Daily Mirror and the free City AM. The biggest month-on-month drop was of 3% at the Sunday People.

March 2023

The i reported the smallest annual print circulation decline among the UK’s national newspapers in March, according to the latest ABC figures.

The i’s circulation was down 7% in March compared to a year before, reaching 131,825. It was the only annual decrease under 10%.

The biggest decline was at the Evening Standard, where its free distribution was down by 31% year-on-year to 310,236.

The biggest paid-for drop was at the Sunday People, down by 21% to 72,091 – the only newspaper with an annual decline of more than a fifth in March.

Every newspaper publicly audited by ABC saw their circulation between February and March change by a narrow margin of between -2% (Daily Star Sunday, Sunday People, Sunday Post) and 1% (Financial Times, Daily Star).

The highest circulation paid-for print newspaper remains the Daily Mail, on 777,586 (down 11% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month). Metro, distributed for free in 50 UK cities, was on 952,424 (down 11% and 0.4% respectively).

February 2023

The Evening Standard has dropped its distribution by almost a third in a year.

The newspaper reported an average distribution of 311,485 for February, meaning it is nearing its circulation from before it went free – its final ABC report as a paid-for newspaper was 256,229 in September 2009.

December was the only month since then that it has been lower, on 310,933, than February’s total. Pre-Covid in February 2020 it was distributing an average of 787,447 copies per day.

The biggest print circulation decline of the UK’s paid-for national newspapers in February was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, which fell by 23% to 73,875. Reach told staff in January the People would begin to share most content with the Sunday Mirror, which itself was down 18% to sales of 209,197.

Fellow Reach title the Daily Express was the only other title aside from the People to fall by more than a fifth, going down by 21% to 173,372.

The smallest annual declines were at the i, which was down 8% to 132,222, and the Financial Times, down 9% to 108,562.

However the FT reported the biggest month-on-month drop of 5%.

Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady compared to January, and while the Daily Star Sunday was the only paid-for newspaper to see no month-on-month decline the Daily Star and Sunday Mail each fell by less than 1%.

January 2023

The Daily Mail's print circulation fell below 800,000 for the first time in January, according to the latest ABC data.

The newspaper reported an average circulation of 797,704, a dip of 12% year-on-year or 2% month-on-month. The Sun, traditionally its rival for the top of the table, is among the newspapers that no longer make their print circulations public.

In March 2020, the last time it published its ABC total, The Sun was on a circulation of 1,210,915 versus 1,132,908 for the Mail. The Mail then overtook The Sun for the first time in 42 years in May that year with a circulation of 980,000 and continues to be the UK's best selling daily.

The only newspaper to report growth in January compared to the same month last year was the Financial Times, up by 1% to 114,685, although it also saw the biggest month-on-month decline of 11% due to a decrease in non-UK circulation, bulk copies distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, and newsstand sales.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the free Evening Standard, which reduced its distribution by 30% to 314,285, followed by the paid-for Reach tabloid Sunday People, down 23% to 75,521.

The Daily Star Sunday, Daily Express, Sunday Post, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Mail and Sunday Express all saw their circulations decline year-on-year by 20%. However all except the Daily Star Sunday and Daily Express stayed steady or grew month-on-month. All are owned by Reach, except the Sunday Post which is owned by DC Thomson.

The biggest month-on-month growth was at City AM, which stopped putting out newspapers on Fridays in January due to low commuter numbers on that day. Editor Andy Silvester said at the time that distribution on Mondays to Thursdays had almost reached pre-pandemic levels.

December 2022

Free newspapers Evening Standard and City AM suffered the biggest drops in their print distribution in December compared to the previous year.

The titles appeared to be distributing fewer copies as publishers suffer rising paper and energy costs amid continued changes to working patterns that see fewer commuters on Mondays and Fridays in particular. Subsequent to these figures, in January City AM has dropped its Friday print edition - but its editor Andy Silvester said the paper was "thriving" on the other four days of the working week.

The Evening Standard's distribution in December was down by 30% year-on-year to 310,933 - its lowest since before it went free in October 2009.

Meanwhile City AM was down 25% to 58,664 and also saw the biggest month-on-month decline, down 14% from November.

Fellow free newspaper Metro also dropped its print distribution, but by a much lesser margin: in December it was down 6% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month to 965,960.

Among the paid-for newspapers whose circulations are published by ABC, several Sunday titles published by Reach all lost more than a fifth of their circulations year-on-year: the Sunday People was down 24% to 74,601, the Daily Star Sunday was down 23% to 88,434, the Sunday Mirror was down 21% to 208,794 and the Sunday Express was also down 21% to 153,377. DC Thomson's Sunday Post in Scotland was also down 22% to 44,038.

These five titles, plus the Sunday Mail in Scotland, also posted the largest paid-for circulation declines month-on-month ranging between 6% and 3% down from November.

The smallest annual decline was at the i (down 5% to 137,039) followed by the Financial Times (down 8% to 128,794).

Two newspapers posted month-on-month growth: the Financial Times (up 17%) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 812,106 - stopping it from dropping below 800,000 for the first time).

November 2022

Print decline across the board continued among the UK's national newspapers in November.

The smallest drop was at the i, which saw its print circulation decline by 3% year-on-year to 138,782.

The biggest was at the free Evening Standard, which dropped its distribution by 27% to 319,485. Among paid newspapers, it was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down to to 77,300 - a 23% drop compared to November 2021.

The only newspaper not to report decline month-on-month was the Sunday Post in Scotland, which grew by 88 copies, or 0.2%, on average.

The Daily Mail remains the biggest paid-for print newspaper of those that publicly release their ABC circulations, staying just above 800,000. The free title Metro had an average distribution of 977,077 in November.

October 2022

No UK national newspapers saw print circulation growth, whether year-on-year or month-on-month, in October.

The latest ABC figures show the smallest declines among paid-for newspapers were at the i (down 3% year-on-year to 140,196 – the only single-figure annual decline) and the Financial Times (down 1% month-on-month to 112,478).

Many national newspapers saw month-on-month growth in September, likely down to appetite for souvenir editions following the death of the Queen.

The biggest drops between September and October, possibly indicating the newspapers with the biggest boost from the national mourning period, were at the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Daily Express, which all fell by 8% month-on-month.

The biggest annual declines were at DC Thomson’s Sunday Post in Scotland and Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 22% and 21% respectively.

The Daily Express, FT, Sunday Mail and Daily Star Sunday all saw year-on-year falls of 19%.

September 2022

A strong appetite for print newspapers and souvenir editions following the death of the Queen appears to have led to month-on-month circulation growth almost across the board at the UK's national newspapers.

But the uplift was not high enough for most to report annual growth.

Of the eight publicly audited paid-for titles that saw month-on-month growth - the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, i and Financial Times - there was an average uplift of 4%. This growth was the same when factoring in the free distributions of Metro and the Evening Standard.

Including every newspaper in our ABC table, excluding City AM which appears to be an anomaly with its free distribution boosted by 37% following a severe slump, there was average month-on-month change of 2%.

The biggest month-on-month change was at the Financial Times, up by 8% to 113,992, followed by the Mail on Sunday (749,960) and i (147,609) which both grew by 5%.

However, annual decline continued at every newspaper except the Financial Times and the i. Although both are the only newspapers that still put bulk copies into locations like airports and hotels, making up 27% of the FT's circulation and 4% at the i, more of their annual growth was down to newsstand sales than this strategy.

The i was in fact at its highest level since December 2020, when it had a circulation of 148,927.

The biggest annual declines were at the Sunday People (down 20% to 82,275) and Sunday Post (down 19% to 48,938).

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years.

August 2022

The Financial Times saw marginal year-on-year growth in circulation in August, with every other newspaper continuing to decline.

The FT had a circulation of 105,748 in August compared to 105,213 the year before. Its newsstand sales and non-UK circulation grew although paid subscriptions and bulks (copies distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) were down.

Month-on-month, the only newspapers to see growth were the Daily Star Sunday, up 2% to 103,200 and the Scottish title Daily Record which was up by 1% to 69,316. Both are owned by Reach.

The Evening Standard also upped its free distribution, although by less than 1%. Its print readership in July was its lowest since before it went free in October 2009, with August the second lowest. Its year-on-year decline of 19% was one of the biggest in our table.

Fellow London free title City AM is also at its lowest distribution (36,640) since its 2005 launch. Its print edition was paused for 18 months during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Reach-owned Sunday People's circulation was down the most, by 22% to 82,597, with DC Thomson's Sunday Post down by 20% to 48,943.

July 2022

Every publicly audited UK national newspaper recorded a year-on-year decline in circulation in July.

Even the Financial Times, which has seen year-on-year growth every month since July 2021, was down by a few hundred copies compared to the year before. This was the smallest annual decline among the audited newspapers.

The Metro distributed less than one million copies for the first time since May 2021, when it trumpeted making it back over that milestone following the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The biggest year-on-year decline was a drop of 22% at the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, however, there was growth of 2% at the i largely down to an increase in paid subscriptions.

The biggest decline from June to July was at City AM, where free distribution more than halved to 37,369.

June 2022

Every publicly ABC audited UK national newspaper saw circulation decline from May to June with the exception of the i which saw growth of 0.2%.

Compared to June 2021, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to report growth, of 8% to 116,498.

Since the Covid-19 lockdowns ended the FT's circulation increases have largely been put down to the return of the distribution of free bulk copies at locations like airports and hotels. But in June a 17% year-on-year increase in bulk copies to 35,094 was also accompanied by 9% growth in paid newsstand sales to 15,612 (alongside a 4% decline in subscriptions to 9,076).

The smallest (4%) annual decline was at the i, which had a circulation of 137,964 and is the only other paid-for newspaper to still be shored up with free bulk copies - although they only account for 4% of its current total.

The biggest month-on-month decline was at the Sunday Mail in Scotland (down 5% to 66,469) while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People (down 23% to 85,212). Both are owned by Reach.

The free Metro was the only national newspaper other than the FT to grow year-on-year (by 3%) as it has upped its distribution this year compared to the Covid-hit 2020 and 2021.

May 2022

The Metro and Financial Times were the only national newspapers to grow their print readerships from last May to this year.

Metro had an average free distribution of 1,074,594 in May, staying steady month-on-month but growing by 17% since last year due to putting out more copies as people have returned to offices and public transport since the final Covid-19 lockdown.

The only paid-for newspapers to grow their circulations month-on-month in May were the Financial Times, up 4% to 116,747 as growth in subscriptions, non-UK sales and bulk copies distributed in locations like airports and hotels offset a drop in newsstand sales, and the Sunday Mail in Scotland, up 0.2% to 69,923. The Sunday Mail did, however, fall by 17% year-on-year.

The FT was the only paid-for paper to grow its circulation compared to May 2021, in large part because it has increased its distribution of bulk copies post-Covid from 25,361 last year to 34,661.

London's free business newspaper City AM has also continued its post-Covid growth, reaching its highest distribution level since returning in September from an 18-month hiatus.

Editor Andy Silvester told Press Gazette's Future of Media Explained podcast this month that the paper's return to pre-pandemic levels "probably proves a lot of sceptics wrong". In May City AM's average free distribution was 82,455, down 4% on February 2020 but up 1% month-on-month.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Daily Mirror and Daily Star, both down 4%, while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People, down 24%. All three are Reach titles.

April 2022

The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror both marginally grew their print circulations in April compared to March, bucking the industry's usual downward trend.

The Daily Mail was up 1% month-on-month to 879,102 while the Daily Mirror also grew by 1% to 327,341.

However both fell by 11% compared to April 2021 and both figures were still their second-lowest respectively since ABC auditing began.

The Daily Mail's digital edition had a readership of 76,315 in April.

Free newspapers Metro, Evening Standard and City AM all also saw month-on-month growth, increasing their print distributions.

After an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus, free business newspaper City AM returned to print in September and has now upped its distribution for three months in a row. It is now at 81,713, its highest since February 2020 when it was on 85,738.

Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,074,889 copies for free in April.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles no longer publish their ABC print circulations, having opted to take them private and focus on other metrics - for example, online subscriptions for The Telegraph and Times.

The Financial Times saw an 8% decline month-on-month to 112,344 but grew by 12% on April last year, making it the only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year. This is largely because it is putting out more bulks - free copies in locations such as airports and hotels - than it did for much of the Covid-19 pandemic (now 33,849 compared to 22,487 last year) while it has also roughly tripled subscriptions in a year (to 9,776).

March 2022

The Mail on Sunday under editor David Dillon had a circulation of 748,965 in March.

Similar to its competitors, the newspaper's circulation has been in steady decline over several years. In March, it fell by 14% year-on-year and 2% compared to the month before. It is down a fifth from 952,914 two years earlier in March 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The Mail on Sunday is currently in the centre of a sexism row around a story reporting that Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner had been accused of crossing and uncrossing in the House of Commons to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dillon refused to meet Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, saying journalists should “not take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be”.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation remains behind the Daily Mail on 875,125 but a long way ahead of its next ABC-audited paid competitor, the Daily Mirror on 325,271.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles all no longer publish their ABC-audited circulations.

The Financial Times was once again the only paid-for newspaper to see year-on-year growth, due to putting out more bulk copies in locations like airports and hotels than in March 2021. It was up 21% on the same time last year, to 121,490 - of which a third (40,958) were bulks.

However its circulation was higher in October to December last year, and its last pre-pandemic figure was 146,373 in March 2020. At that time about a fifth were bulk copies.

City AM's free distribution rose above 80,000 for the first time since it resumed printing in September after an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus. It distributed an average of 80,440 copies in March compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

The Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,073,993 copies for free in March.

February 2022

The Daily Mail's print circulation has fallen below 900,000 for the first time in more than 100 years.

In February the newspaper sold an average of 896,455 copies each day - or 767,021 on weekdays and 1,449,049 on Saturdays - following a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year decline of 7%.

The Daily Mail launched in 1896 with sales of 397,215. Within its first few years it surpassed one million and, despite a brief drop in 1915 in a row with the Government over troops' munition supplies, remained above that mark until the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sister title Mail on Sunday had an average circulation of 767,756 in February, down 2% month-on-month and 10% year-on-year.

The Sun, for many years the Daily Mail's closest ABC rival, no longer publishes its circulation - but the Mail overtook the red-top for the first time in 42 years in 2020.

The most-circulated national newspaper remains the free Metro, with a distribution of 1,066,327 that was up compared to both the month and year prior.

By contrast, fellow free newspaper the Evening Standard was down 9% year-on-year to 448,043.

The biggest annual declines were at Reach's Sunday People (95,637, down 20%) and Daily Star Sunday (107,478, down 19%).

January 2022

The Daily Mail was the only paid-for national newspaper to grow its circulation from December to January.

It reported 1% growth month-on-month, while its year-on-year decline of 5% to 909,201 was the smallest among the paid-for newspapers that don't use bulk copies.

The Financial Times grew by 17% year-on-year to 113,817 while the i grew by 1% to 142,598. Excluding bulk copies given away for free at locations such as airports and hotels, the FT grew by 3% to 79,446 and the i stayed steady on 137,483.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at Reach's Daily Star Sunday, which fell by 19% to 110,133. Month-on-month, the biggest decline was at the FT, which dropped by 18%.

Metro stayed steady between December and January but reported a 72% year-on-year jump. It built back its free distribution, which was massively scaled back in the early pandemic, and crossed the 1m mark once again in May last year.

December 2021

The Daily Star’s circulation has fallen below 200,000 for the first time in its 43-year history.

The tabloid had an average daily readership of 197,998 in December, according to the latest ABC figures, following a 2% month-on-month drop and a 14% decline since a year earlier.

The figures show continuing print readership decline as the lowest the Star’s circulation had gone during the first Covid-19 lockdown was 219,275 in April 2020.

It follows Reach stablemate Sunday People’s circulation falling below 100,000 in November.

In December the Daily Star Sunday and Sunday People saw the biggest annual circulation drops of 20% and 19% respectively.

The only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year was the Financial Times, which has upped the number of bulk copies given away for free since last year. However it still fell 2% month-on-month with bulk copies, newsstand sales and subscriptions all down in December.

The only newspaper to see month-on-month growth was City AM, which returned to print in September and in December was distributing an average of 78,418 copies each day compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

November 2021

The first ABC figures for London freesheet City AM since it returned to print in September show distribution is down 9% since February 2020.

Meanwhile, in November the Sunday People's circulation dropped by 21% to 99,915 - the first time since ABC records began in 2000 that its average circulation was below 100,000, even during the earlier Covid-19 lockdowns.

City AM distributed an average of 77,959 copies each weekday between 8 and 28 November, compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

Chief executive Jens Torpe told Press Gazette in September he hoped to reach pre-pandemic levels of distribution within about a month of relaunching.

According to the newspaper's ABC certificate it has hugely boosted its number of distribution points from 913 in February 2020 to 3,632. The business paper struck a deal to be found in all WeWork’s London locations and new offices, and went further out into the commuter belt to compensate for changing travel patterns as many City workers stuck with flexible working.

Average pagination has gone from 28 in February 2020 to 26, with editorial content up from 70% to 72%.

Nationally-published free newspaper Metro, which continued distributing throughout the pandemic for groups like key workers who kept travelling, remains 25% down on its February 2020 distribution level with 1.05m. It re-crossed the 1m mark in May and is the most-read newspaper in the UK.

The Evening Standard, which like City AM is only distributed in London, is 44% down on its February 2020 level with a distribution of 439,445 - but chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this was a "comfortable number that’s working well". It also kept publishing throughout the pandemic, but experimented with free home delivery for the first time.

The only newspapers to record year-on-year growth in November were Metro and the Financial Times, which both grew by 37%. The FT's newsstand sales were down by a quarter but subscriptions and bulk copies distributed for free were both up.

October 2021

The FT has grown its circulation by a third in the past year, and by a quarter between September and October, largely by putting out more free bulk copies.

The newspaper reported a circulation of 138,446 in October, which includes 55,222 bulk copies distributed for free in places like airports and hotels which have more than doubled since October 2020.

The FT's newsstand sales have decreased by 29% from 20,357 to 14,490 in a year although paid subscriptions grew 191% from 3,697 to 10,764. The FT also reports sales in other countries of 57,970 within its total.

It is the FT's highest circulation since the first three weeks of March 2020, when it was on 146,373, while the trend at most paid-for newspapers has been decline throughout 2021. (The i, which is up since January, is the only other national to put out bulks).

Meanwhile Metro has settled its free distribution on 1.05m which is up 35% compared to October 2020 when some workers had begun to return to work but at a slower pace than expected.

Its free rival in London, the Evening Standard, is down 10% compared to last year on 457,542.

The Saturday edition of the Daily Mail remains the most-read newspaper with a weekly circulation of 1.47m. The weekday edition sells 784,439. Both the daily and Sunday editions saw a 9% year-on-year decline.

The biggest year-on-year decline was once again at The Sunday People, which fell by 19% to 101,597. The Daily Star Sunday was down 18% to 118,260.

September 2021

Reach's Sunday People and Sunday Post newspapers recorded the biggest year-on-year declines in circulation in September of the publicly-audited national newspapers.

Both saw their circulations decline by 19% while the Sunday Mirror, Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail all fell by 14%. All are owned by Reach.

The Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation year-on-year, by 7% to a total of 111,898. However its free bulk copies, distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, increased by 41% to 32,351. Although paid subscriptions grew by 130% to 9,102, newsstand copies were down by a quarter to 15,154. Some 55,291 copies are sold in other countries.

Aside from the free Metro and the FT, every other newspaper remained steady between August and September changing by between 0% and -2%.

August 2021

The i was the only national newspaper to grow its paid circulation from July to August as subscriptions growth offset declining newsstand sales.

The i's print subscriptions grew from 23,199 in July to 25,223 in August. At the same time it put out more paid multiple copies, known as bulks, in locations such as airports and hotels (rising from 4,006 to 4,620).

Its average circulation therefore grew from 143,486 to 144,570. However this was still 5% down on last August.

The August ABC figures are the first in which the Guardian and Observer are absent, having chosen to keep their circulations private as News UK and the Telegraph did last year.

The Guardian's departure from the grid comes after its circulation was overtaken by the Financial Times in June for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Previously the audited circulation of the FT had been above that of the Guardian since 2000, the earliest available online ABC records.

The FT was again the only paid-for title to have grown year-on-year as it distributes bulk copies that were missing during the pandemic. It grew 12% year-on-year to 105,213 in August but fell by 2% from July.

The free Metro more than doubled its August 2020 figure following the end of the winter lockdown and the ramping up of its distribution to reach people increasingly venturing out again. It has now distributed an average of more than 1m copies per day for three months in a row.

July 2021

Putting on bulk copies has helped the FT to grow its circulation by nearly a quarter (24%) year-on-year while sales of The i paper have fallen by just 1% over the same period, new ABC figures for July show.

The FT sells more than 107,000 copies, of which more than 32,000 are bulks. The i, which is now part of the Daily Mail group, has a circulation of more than 143,000 copies, with some 4,000 bulks.

The free Metro's distribution was in excess of 1m in July 2021, nearly tripling its print output during the height of the pandemic.

All other newspapers audited by ABC reported a fall in year-on-year circulation. The Telegraph, Sun and Times titles are not included.

The Daily Mail has the largest paid-for circulation among the titles audited by ABC at more than 933,000. Its sister title the Mail on Sunday is behind on a little over 813,000 copies.

June 2021

Reach’s national Sunday titles continued to experienced the biggest year-on-year circulation drops in the industry in June.

The Sunday Post dropped by 16%, Daily Star Sunday was down 15%, Scottish tabloid Sunday Mail was down 14%, the Sunday People was down 13% and the Sunday Mirror by 11%. The Sunday Express was Reach’s best faring Sunday title, falling by 7%.

The best performance among paid-for newspapers was at the Financial Times which grew by 38% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month to 108,014.

As lockdown restrictions have eased the FT has put the number of bulk copies which go to locations like airports and hotels back up by 751% - from 3,534 to 30,093 – putting it on a similar level to June 2019 when 31, 057 bulk copies were distributed. The number of copies it sold in other countries was also up, although this was half 2019 levels.

No other paid-for newspapers grew month-on-month, and the i was the only other to grow year-on-year, although this could mainly be attributed to an increase in bulk distribution similar to the FT.

However the i's bulks remain, by contrast, far below 2019 levels - 50,250 in June 2019 versus 3,699 this year.

The Metro has continued putting its free distribution back up as lockdown restrictions continued to ease. It went up by 10% between May and June and 224% compared to last June, topping 1m on average.

By comparison its rival in London, the free Evening Standard, has decided to maintain its distribution at Covid levels and concentrate on online growth. It was distributing 492,406 copies on average in June.

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years – with a spotlight on how Covid-19 affected circulations in the past year.

May 2021

The Financial Times and the i were the only paid UK national newspapers to grow their circulations in May compared to last year – despite the first Covid-19 lockdown's severe impact on spring 2020 newsstand sales.

Both newspapers reported growth even when their bulk copies (those distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) are taken into account.

The i grew its circulation by 3% year-on-year excluding bulks to 140,721 or by 5% to 144,192 when bulks are included.

Meanwhile the FT grew by 2% to 77,218, excluding bulks, in May. Including bulks it was up 30% to 102,579.

Every other national newspaper saw an annual decline, with the smallest at the Daily Express, owned by Reach, which fell by 1% to 239,024.

May continued the trend of Reach’s Sunday titles experiencing the biggest year-on-year drops, however (scroll down or click here to see April's report).

Scotland’s Sunday Post and Sunday Mail were down 14% and 11% respectively. Nationally the Daily Star Sunday was down 12% and the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were both down 7%.

In May last year most national newspapers began to recover after their circulations had been hit hard by the first five weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Month-on-month, the FT (2%), i (1%) and the Guardian (0%) were the only paid-for titles not to see a dip. The biggest decline from April was at the Mail on Sunday (5%).

The ABC figures also demonstrated the impact of loosening Covid-19 restrictions on free newspapers as Metro and the Evening Standard increased their distributions by 190% and 9% respectively compared to May last year.

April 2021

Reach’s four Sunday titles – the Daily Star Sunday, Sunday Express, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – were the only national titles to have a lower circulation in April than they did during the UK’s strictest Covid-19 lockdown one year earlier.

The rest of the UK’s national newspapers are back above the circulations of their worst Covid slump, which took place amid uncertainties about the future for the industry as the UK was told to stay at home at the start of the pandemic.

Despite its 7% annual decline, the Daily Star Sunday had the biggest month-on-month growth of 3%. Most paid-for titles were able to keep their April circulations similar to March, with a drop of -1% the largest nationally and of -2% at the Sunday Mail the biggest overall.

The Scottish title, which is also owned by Reach, was down year-on-year by 6% to 85,450.

Despite the declines at Reach's Sunday titles, its national dailies the Mirror and Express were up by 2% and 3% respectively compared to April last year.

The Financial Times grew by 13% year-on-year to 100,215 in April. However it has upped its number of free copies distributed at locations such as airports and hotels from 7,042 last April to 22,487 – excluding these, its circulation has decreased 5% to 77,728.

By contrast the i, the only other paper to include bulk free copies in its ABC audited circulation, was up by 7% if they are included (143,380) and 9% if they are not (140,013).

This equals the Observer, which was also up 9% compared to last April to reach 140,894 copies each week.

The i’s DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were also both up by 4% and 5% respectively on last year. DMGT’s free title Metro has been “building back” its distribution, as editor Ted Young told Press Gazette last week, to reach an average of 805,471 per day in April. It then topped 1m on 17 May as lockdown restrictions eased.

The Evening Standard also increased its free distribution compared to last April, by 16% to 492,575. Chief executive Charles Yardley has told Press Gazette he is planning to keep numbers at around half a million going forward.

March 2021

Paid-for national newspaper circulations have fallen by almost a fifth (18%) on average since just before the first Covid-19 lockdown.

The final year-on-year comparison with pre-Covid ABC newspaper circulations shows the biggest declines have been at the i and Financial Times, which are both down by about a third to 143,204 and 100,781 respectively.

They are the only two paid-for ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports. Excluding bulks, the FT’s circulation fell by 35% year-on-year and the i’s fell by 18%.

The smallest, and only single-digit, declines were at the Mail on Sunday and Observer which both saw their circulation fall by 9% in the past year to 867,077 and 142,277 respectively in March 2021.

ABC’s March 2020 report spanned 2 to 22 March, stopping before the first lockdown came into place – although many people began working from home and curtailing social gatherings from about a week earlier.

The Evening Standard’s free circulation is down by 29% to 494,364 compared to March last year. The newspaper’s chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this month he remains committed to print but will not raise the distribution back to pre-pandemic levels.

Free rival Metro has dropped its distribution by half to 695,444. It initially dropped by 70% in April last year and rose to a

The biggest-selling issue of a UK national newspaper remains the Daily Mail’s Saturday issue, which sold an average 1,588,164 copies each week last month compared to 1,699,891 in March last year.

February 2021

The Observer reported the smallest drop in print circulation among UK national newspapers in February – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

The Observer, which had an average circulation of 140,920, was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit drop. The next smallest decline was the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 12% to 848,526.

Sister title the Daily Mail was the only publication to see month-on-month growth from January, up 1% to 964,825. It was 15% behind the 1,134,184 it had in February 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK.

However, the Daily Mail’s digital edition grew its average circulation by 4% from 94,171 in January to 98,107.

[Read more: See latest online audience data published by Pamco here]

In February free titles Metro and Evening Standard distributed 58% and 38% fewer copies respectively compared to the year before. Both are continuing to publish for key worker commuters although most people remain under a “stay at home” order, with the Standard also delivering to doorsteps in certain parts of London.

The biggest paid-for circulation drops in February were at the Financial Times (down 36%) and i (35%), the only two ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports.

Excluding bulks, the FT was down 40% and the i was down 18% - taking it below the Daily Star’s 20% decline.

January 2021

The UK’s current coronavirus lockdown has not hit national newspaper circulations as hard as last year’s strict April restrictions did, according to new figures from ABC.

However, most titles are now again below the circulation levels to which they had begun to recover in May last year.

The Daily Mail’s print circulation has fallen to its lowest since the peak of the Covid-19 crisis in April.

The UK’s top-selling newspaper sold an average of 960,019 copies each day in January, an 18% drop year-on-year. In April it reported a circulation of 944,981, which grew to 979,836 in May.

The Mail overtook The Sun in May 2020 and Press Gazette understands it has since consolidated its lead.

Digital edition sales add a further 77,736 to the Mail's daily circulation figure, according to ABC - keeping it above 1m.

In March last year, before the first UK lockdown, the Mail was selling in excess of 1.1m copies per day.

Also below their May 2020 circulations were the Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express, Daily Star on Sunday, Sunday People, and the Guardian.

Only the Observer, i and Financial Times were above their May figures from last year in January.

Several national newspapers saw bigger year-on-year drops in January than the Mail: the FT’s circulation fell by 39%, the i by 35%, the Sunday Post by 22%, the Daily Star by 21%, the Daily Express by 19% and the Daily Mirror by 19%.

The smallest year-on-year drop was at the Observer, which saw a decline of 8% to a circulation of 143,764.

The biggest month-on-month fall from December was also at the FT (down by 8% to 97,067) followed by the Daily Star Sunday, i and Guardian which were all down by 5%.

The only title to report any growth was Scottish tabloid the Sunday Mail, which was up 1% month-on-month to 88,819.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were down 58% and 39% respectively year on year in January.

December 2020

The Mail on Sunday reported the smallest drop in print circulation in December – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

It had an average circulation of 954,497 in December 2019, down to 865,439 last month. It was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit year-on-year decline, with the Observer the second smallest drop (by 10% to 147,296).

The Financial Times saw its print circulation fall by more than a third (35%) year-on-year to 105,358 – the biggest fall among the UK’s paid-for national newspapers.

However, the FT did grow by 1% month-on-month as it continues to recover from the initial Covid-19 lockdown slump common to each of the titles.

The Guardian saw the biggest month-on-month growth of 2% in December.

The biggest fall from November 2020 was at the Sunday People, down 5% to 120,429.

Wales went into lockdown on 20 December while Scotland and Northern Ireland were placed under tight restrictions from Boxing Day and much of London and the south east of England entered strict Tier 4 restrictions days before Christmas.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 38% down respectively on the previous year’s print readership.

November 2020

Several national newsbrands managed a month on month increase in print circulation in November, with The Observer seeing the biggest rise at 4%.

The Observer's print circulation rose from 145,680 to 152,129 having remained steady in the previous month.

The Sunday Express, the Sunday People and the Guardian also saw print sales rise 1%, after seeing declines between September and October

The Observer saw the smallest year-on-year decline at 5%. It was the only title not to report a double-digit year-on-year fall.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (36% to 104,024) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 46% and 40% down on the previous year's print readership.

October 2020

The Observer was the only national print newspaper brand not to see a year on year print circulation decline in October.

The Observer's print readership remained steady on 145,680 as every other title except the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 9%, reported a double-digit year-on-year decline.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (39% to 105,592) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 39% down on the previous year's print readership - although Metro managed to add a fifth back onto its output in October.

Press Gazette is hosting the Future of Media Technology Conference. For more information, visit NSMG.live

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The Telegraph set out in March to launch 12 significant uses of AI in its newsroom over 12 months.

The tools include newsroom workflow aides, consumer-facing AI services and internal data discovery tools. They are packaged together in an internal tool called Pulse AI so staff have a one-stop shop for the new services.

The Telegraph‘s director of technology Dylan Jacques told Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast he had found it more valuable to “learn through doing” instead of getting bogged down in policy questions over AI.

“What we decided to do at the beginning of this year was really make a concerted step change and a bit of commitment to the organisation that we’re going to see through a practical set of tools in practice. We didn’t want it to be ‘this is coming, this is coming’ and it drag on too long.

“We essentially pulled together a bit of a mission statement, if you like, that said we need to understand this in practice quite soon. We didn’t want to be spending six months or 12 months on a concept that then turned out to not be that valuable or hard to achieve.”

‘If you can improve engagement, all boats rise with that tide’

Jacques said the new products, which are using a “whole range of tools from across a multitude of vendors”, are already providing “real business value” and “definite investable opportunity”.

He explained: “So far it’s been tied into improved customer engagement. If you can improve engagement, then all of the boats rise with that tide really, and subscriptions will flow from that.”

The Telegraph has been running a subscriptions-first strategy since 2018 and it ended last year with 1,035,710 subscriptions, including more than 200,000 added with the company’s acquisition of the Chelsea Magazine Company.

Jacques said AI-generated summaries at the top of email newsletters have led to a 20% increase in click-through rates. These summaries are not used on every email – some are still human-written – but Jacques noted that as personalised content grows and people are sent different articles depending on their interests, journalists will not be able to write a version for each reader, whereas gen AI can.

Telegraph readers may also have noticed AI-generated summaries appearing at the top of some articles with a disclaimer.

Jacques said: “There was a lot of internal debate as to whether or not this is something that actually really adds value to the consumer, and points can be made either way. Obviously, our journalism is our product. It’s what we’re all here to do. And using AI products to summarise that, it might help certain people, whether they’re time poor on their commute, but if it detracts from people really spending the time to fully examine the journalism, it’s not necessarily the best thing for the organisation and journalism in the long term.”

Swedish daily Aftonbladet said last year that people were spending longer on articles with AI-generated summaries at the top. Jacques said this has not proved the case at The Telegraph but that page views per sessions tend to go up when people are given these summaries.

“We quite quickly understood that the dwell time did dip, but actually that’s not the end of the world.

“We’ve A/B tested showing summary points on articles at a fair amount of scale and we’re reasonably confident that page views per session goes up by a fairly clear, statistically significant number.”

Modern gen AI technology has meant ‘big leap forward’

The Telegraph is also looking at using generative AI to translate its flagship Ukraine: The Latest podcast which has an “enormous international audience” including Ukrainian and Russian speakers.

“One of the things that gen AI has enabled us to explore is translating our podcasts in a way that is usable and digestible in those native language,” Jacques said, adding that previously the tech meant it could be done but “in quite a robotic way”.

“I think they rely on sort of translating it to text and then reverse translating it back,” he said. “And actually what some of the more modern gen AI services have enabled us to do is create translations that are quite true to the voices of the presenters… and it does it in quite a seamless and impressive way. And actually it’s maintaining the cadence of voice and the fluidity of the discussion much better than the previous, much more robotic services could do. So that’s been a big leap forward.

“And I think that’s going to be a really interesting one because that’s another area where while we would love to have journalists and audio presenters in all sorts of languages, it’s not realistic to expect that we would ever be able to extend our model to ever achieve that. So this is us being able to achieve something, broaden our audience and really get to a much bigger market than we previously were able to purely by the gen AI tech.”

Other products rolled out so far include an SEO headline generator and a localisation tool suggesting changes to language and context for audiences in the US, for example by telling journalists that they might want to add a quick explanation of Remembrance Sunday.

Jacques said that “giving some context is very helpful as clearly you want there to be the minimum amount of obstacles in the consumer’s reading of something, and if it immediately feels like they’re reading something that they clearly just don’t understand or don’t have context from, we’re not going to see great engagement through it”.

Staff can also use an editorial research tool based on all of The Telegraph’s previous content to help them more easily add context or find past quotes. And they have a new AI data assistant helping them quickly get the answers to analytics questions like “how many subscriptions did we get yesterday?” or “what was engagement like in the money section of the website in the US last week?”

Jacques said that previously “you would have to get through quite a bit of comparative analysis and dashboard comparisons. This is now available at people’s fingertips quite instantly.”

Telegraph AI tips: ‘Learn through doing, be agnostic, invest in the capability’

Also potentially in the pipeline is a customer-facing search chatbot for the site based on its own archive, similar to functions rolled out this year by the Financial Times and The Washington Post.

“We have internal services that do that already and we’re just contemplating whether or not we want to extend that into the consumer-facing realm,” Jacques said.

“We’ve got a very ambitious multi-strand expansion plan for more of this next year. We’ve seen some real successes so lots of reasons to invest, and we really want to establish ourselves as a market leader in the gen AI space.”

Asked for his tips for other news publishers that may not be as far through their journey rolling out generative AI products, Jacques said: “I would say if you feel you’re being bogged down with policy type stuff, I would try and move to a model where you’re learning through doing rather than doing too much academic evaluation of whether you should.”

He added that it is best to be “quite agnostic” with the technology: “There are lots of tools out there, they change all the time, different models get released all the time which suddenly makes a use case that was unfeasible last month this month totally feasible. So you need to be quite across the technology and trying different things all the time. Hitching your flag to one vendor or another is probably a mistake in this area.”

Jacques added: “You want to invest in the capability within your organisation as much as you want to invest in the use cases.” The Telegraph has around six people dedicated to working on generative AI. The questions to ask when deciding on staffing, he noted, include “what would they be doing otherwise?” and “what are the development priorities within the organisation?”

Jacques continued: “You might find that, you know, all of a sudden you want to turn something off and spin something else up that’s new and you can do that easily… providing that you’ve got the people and the capability – the use case specifically maybe is a bit more transient.”

Hear more from Telegraph of technology Dylan Jacques about the news publisher’s generative AI rollout on Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast.

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Guido Fawkes owner Paul Staines is stepping down as editor this week after 20 years leading the political blog.

Staines is passing the reins over to Lord Ross Kempsell, Guido contributing editor and former chief reporter.

Kempsell has been appointed to the role of publisher and will look at how to grow Guido’s audience and revenue, and eventually the size of the newsroom.

Staines will become founding editor, no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the site. The news was announced ahead of Guido’s 20th anniversary dinner being held this week.

Staines said: “If a week is a long time in politics, 20 years feels like an eternity. I’ve seen six general elections, eight prime ministers, three referendums, plenty of scandal, mountains of ego, masses of mayhem and buckets of bullshit. I’ve also witnessed huge changes to the way politics is covered in this country.

“Guido has launched some brilliant careers, and sunk a few along the way. When I look back I can honestly say that I’ve had more fun and broken more scoops than I can recount. Now feels like the right time to pass the gunpowder to the next generation.”

Staines is stepping aside at the same time as standing up against a libel claim brought by Dale Vince over the reporting of comments the Ecotricity founder made on Times Radio relating to Hamas – even though Guido has previously used “safe haven protection” against legal action because Staines is based in Ireland and the site’s servers are based in Washington DC. He has crowdfunded more than £92,000 in less than a week to fight the case and a preliminary hearing was held on Monday.

Kempsell is planning to focus on Guido as his first media development project and is aiming to grow its audience, revenue and eventually the size of the newsroom.

The current staff, news editor Max Young and senior reporter Ellie Wheatley, are unaffected by the leadership change. Kempsell is understood to be looking at appointing a new editor in due course.

He said: “Paul’s decades of hard work has built an extraordinary media brand with unparalleled influence inside Westminster and beyond. Paul did nothing less than single-handedly revolutionise political reporting in Britain. Loved by its readers and feared by its competitors, Guido is constantly growing in reach and impact.

“I am enormously proud of the newsroom team and I am focused on leading the commercial development of the brand for a new age while maintaining its focus on agenda-setting reporting.”

Kempsell first joined Guido as a reporter in 2017 and has since become known for his roles as Talkradio’s first political editor, in then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s team at Number 10 as a special adviser focused on reform of Whitehall and the public sector and later as a press adviser for after Johnson’s resignation, and as special correspondent at Times Radio focused on home affairs, policing, crime and security.

He was nominated to the Lords in Johnson’s resignation honours list last year aged 31. Kempsell’s PR firm Hyannis Strategy Ltd has assets of £2.6m according to its latest filing with Companies House.

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News Corp-owned business intelligence search engine Factiva is adding generative AI summaries to its search results.

The news database, which is part of Dow Jones, has deployed Google’s Gemini technology as part of News Corp’s ongoing business partnership with the tech giant. News Corp signed a three-year partnership with Google in 2021 which included payments for content via Google News Showcase and technology sharing.

Factiva approached every one of its almost 4,000 sources for new generative AI permissions and received the go-ahead from a “significant subset” of them according to general manager Traci Mabrey.

Having generative AI summaries in the search results has added multiple new “royalty moments” to Factiva, she said, including when a publisher’s content is referenced within the summary.

Factiva is used by institutions and professionals in fields like business, finance, academia and government who buy subscriptions to access its searchable archive of news, analysis and research.

Factiva licenses content from publishers, including both paywalled and free websites, meaning they get royalties proportionate to how much their work is surfaced by users.

With the launch of the generative AI capability, responses to searches in Factiva will contain a multi-sentence summary of the question that was asked above citations for three direct sources with links back to their articles, three additional recommended searches, and then a more classic search results section with all the articles that were responsive to the question asked.

Factiva acted as ‘publisher first’ in outreach for new AI deals

Mabrey told Press Gazette Factiva has been guided by three main principles on its AI products: “being a publisher first, an arbiter for publishers and an innovator”.

The publisher has reached out and spoken to “every publication and every source” on its books asking for generative AI rights, meaning every publisher referenced in its search summaries has consented to be there.

This contrasts with the approach taken by Google itself, which summarises publishers’ work in its own AI summaries without giving them a “genuine” choice (if they want to stay in its main search results).

They include: The Associated Press, Swiss news agency AWP Finanznachrichten AG and The Washington Post as well as Factiva’s fellow News Corp properties in the UK and Australia.

Mabrey said publishers have been “very grateful and very pleased with the fact that we have come with a very transparent and very trustful approach, and I think that has been one of the rationales for us being able to get some very strong partners from around the world to come on board because we are being very candid about what we want to do with the publications, what we are going to be offering in royalty moments”.

She added that she did not believe hallucinations or inaccuracies would be a problem as they have been in some generative AI products because only trusted sources are being used.

“So we are not bringing in just unvalidated information and what we think that is able to do is that that’s able to really ensure that our cutting edge technology is built on the foundation of the trusted journalism, data and analysis that’s needed at the core to begin the process.

“What we want to ensure is that by identifying those sources and building a highly relevant and contextual semantic search, that is going to be able to preclude what we hope is going to be a significant amount, if not all, of the hallucinations, because it is a very clean dataset that is going to be delivering the generative AI results, and what we want to be able to do is continue that steady stream of high quality views and information as we go forward.”

Other AI-generated ways publishers can earn royalties at Dow Jones include through the Factiva Feed for GenAI and Dow Jones Newswires GenAI Feed, which provide enterprises and financial firms with “licensed, copyright-compliant full-text content to power custom generative AI applications” like chatbots, as well as the Risk Center product for financial crime and risk management screening, and the automated due diligence report product Dow Jones Integrity Check.

Google gave Factiva ‘privacy and security’

Factiva’s new generative AI addition has been engineered with Google‘s Gemini models on Google Cloud as an extension of the existing partnership with the tech giant.

The Google Cloud partnership initially rolled out semantic search on Factiva, meaning AI interpreted the meaning and intent of a search rather than simply matching keywords.

Of the latest addition, Mabrey said: “Why we were very pleased to partner with Google on with this is that they offered us the privacy and security that was paramount for us, given the fact that we have our publishing IP within this Google Cloud instance, we also have the publishing IP for the external publishers and media and market data entities that are part of the ecosystem.

“So having the privacy and having the security was critically important, but then also being able to have a semantic search paradigm that was built solely on relevancy and contextual search criteria was also paramount, and they were able to truly deliver that for us.”

Google Cloud’s North America president Michael Clark said in a statement: “Dow Jones’s use of Google’s Gemini models on Google Cloud to power gen AI search summaries marks a significant step towards leveraging the technology to enhance information access and analysis.

“By combining our models with the extensive Factiva content set, we’re showcasing how GenAI can be a powerful tool for growth for the media industry.”

Dow Jones owner News Corp has separately done a deal with Google’s biggest rival in the AI space, OpenAI, for the use of the publisher’s current and archived content in products like ChatGPT.

Mabrey said: “It’s a very different agreement than what we have with our IPs [information providers] for our generative AI search in Factiva, but it really does apply very similar guiding principles… We apply those same guiding principles to our own IP and to the partners that we have around the globe.”

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The publisher of the Daily Mail has won a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights opposing “excessive” costs incurred by claimants in defamation and privacy cases.

The publisher argued that its right to freedom of expression, under Article 10 of the European Convention, had been breached.

The ruling follows a privacy case brought by man who was arrested, but not charged, following a terror attack. The Mail’s £83,000 damages award was dwarfed by the £822,000 paid out to the man’s lawyers.

Associated Newspapers took the UK Government to the Strasbourg court over conditional fee arrangements (CFA) and After the Event (ATE) insurance premiums in relation to two recent cases for which it had to pay the extra costs.

It won on CFAs and the UK was ordered to pay the publisher €15,000 in costs and expenses, with a further decision to be made on any pecuniary damages. But the publisher did not succeed on the part of its case relating to ATE premiums.

CFAs allow claimants to engage a solicitor on a “no win, no fee” basis or pay only part of the fee before the case concludes. If they win, they pay a success fee on top of the normal fees. But if they lose, their lawyer does not get paid.

ATE premiums underwrite a claimant’s liability to pay the defendant’s costs should their case be unsuccessful.

Associated complained about CFAs in relation to a privacy case brought by a man named by Mail Online after he was arrested, but never charged, on suspicion of involvement in the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack.

The ruling in favour of the man is one of a number in recent years that have set a precedent in favour of greater privacy and against naming suspects before charge.

Associated was ordered to pay the man £83,000 in damages plus costs of £822,421.79, which included £245,775 plus VAT for the success fee agreed between the man and his lawyer.

The publisher agreed that its liability to pay this sort of success fee breached Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Associated said, according to a court summary, that the “burdens placed on unsuccessful defendants were excessive and unfair, and the threat of such liabilities was plainly capable of discouraging the participation of the press in debates over matters of legitimate concern”.

The case referenced a 2011 ruling in which Mirror publisher MGN Ltd won a similar case in the European Court after it faced a legal costs bill for more than £1m over a case in which supermodel Naomi Campbell won £3,500 in damages.

Legislation was adopted in 2013 to prevent losing parties from being liable for success fees and ATE insurance premiums – except in defamation and privacy cases. Liability for success fees in defamation and privacy was abolished in 2019, except when the CFA pre-dated that decision which was the case here, but successful claimants can still recover the costs of ATE premiums from the losing party.

For this reason the court concluded that the obligation on the media company to pay additional costs including success fees was “disproportionate”, resulting in a violation of Article 10.

But it found the obligation to pay ATE premiums to the man in the Manchester Arena case, as well as to a woman who separately settled with Associated over “defamatory” allegations that she gave credibility to the false claims of convicted fantasist Carl Beech that led to the historic child sex abuse investigation Operation Midland, was not disproportionate.

The woman in that case asked to receive £825,164.40, of which £335,160 represented the ATE premium, but ultimately accepted £709,095.15 as the costs settlement.

The judgment summary said the premium payments were proportionate “especially since those premiums would have served in the newspaper company’s interests had it won the cases against it”.

The ruling was a Chamber judgment, meaning both sides now have three months in which they can ask for it to be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court for consideration as to whether it deserves further examination.

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One of the first copyright cases to be brought by news publishers against OpenAI has been dismissed by a judge.

Left-leaning news outlets AlterNet and Raw Story objected to the use of “thousands” of pieces of their content being used by OpenAI to train ChatGPT.

They alleged that their copyrighted work was “caught in a “scrape of most of the internet” to train ChatGPT and stripped of their author, title and copyright information” and sought damages from OpenAI.

On Thursday a judge in New York granted a request by OpenAI to dismiss the complaint in its entirety.

US District Judge Colleen McMahon said: “Plaintiffs allege that ChatGPT has been trained on ‘a scrape of most of the internet’, which includes massive amounts of information from innumerable sources on almost any given subject. Plaintiffs have nowhere alleged that the information in their articles is copyrighted, nor could they do so.

“When a user inputs a question into ChatGPT, ChatGPT synthesises the relevant information in its repository into an answer. Given the quantity of information contained in the repository, the likelihood that ChatGPT would output plagiarised content from one of Plaintiffs’ articles seems remote.

“And while Plaintiffs provide third-party statistics indicating that an earlier version of ChatGPT generated responses containing significant amounts of plagiarised content, Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged that there is a ‘substantial risk’ that the current version of ChatGPT will generate a response plagiarising one of plaintiffs’ articles.”

The publishers, who have had the same owner since AlterNet was acquired by Raw Story Media in 2018, centred the case on the removal of the copyright management information (CMI) from their works, saying this meant ChatGPT would not have learned to communicate that information when fashioning responses to inquiries from users.

They claimed the removal of the CMI was a violation of Section 1202(b)(i) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA) and they were therefore entitled to damages.

However the judge said they did not meet the threshold of Article III standing – which in US law requires concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation.

The publishers attempted to address this, saying “the unlawful removal of CMI from a copyrighted work is a concrete injury”.

Judge McMahon said: “Plaintiffs allege that their copyrighted works (absent CMI) were used to train an AI-software program and remain in ChatGPT’s repository of text. But Plaintiffs have not alleged any actual adverse effects stemming from this alleged DMCA violation.”

And she cited a previous case that concluded: “No concrete harm, no standing.”

The publishers also sought an injunction requiring OpenAI to remove all copies of their “copyrighted works from which author, title, copyright, and terms of use information w[ere] removed from their training sets and any other repositories”.

They argued that they are entitled to such an injunction because “whether ChatGPT has or has not already reproduced their copyrighted work without attaching the required CMI, there is a substantial risk that ChatGPT will do so in the future”.

OpenAI argued the publishers failed to “allege facts tending to show that the risk of ChatGPT reproducing Plaintiffs’ work, in whole or in part, absent the requisite CMI is ‘substantial'” and the judge agreed.

“Let us be clear about what is really at stake here,” she wrote. “The alleged injury for which Plaintiffs truly seek redress is not the exclusion of CMI from Defendants’ training sets, but rather Defendants’ use of Plaintiffs’ articles to develop ChatGPT without compensation to Plaintiffs…

“Whether or not that type of injury satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement, it is not the type of harm that has been ‘elevated’ by Section 1202(b)(i) of the DMCA… Whether there is another statute or legal theory that does elevate this type of harm remains to be seen. But that question is not before the Court today.”

Judge McMahon said she was “sceptical” about the publishers’ ability to allege a perceptible injury caused by OpenAI, but said she was “prepared to consider an amended pleading”.

“We’re confident that we can address the court’s concerns in an amended complaint,” Matt Topic, a partner at Loevy & Loevy, the firm representing Raw Story Media, told Wired.

Explaining in February why the case had been launched, Raw Story publisher Roxanne Cooper said: “Raw Story’s copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material.”

The New York Times was the first news publisher to launch legal action against OpenAI, alongside its partner Microsoft, in December last year. The case has since been combined with those of eight Alden Global Capital-owned publications including The New York Daily News and is currently at the stage of the publishers searching the AI company’s training database in secure conditions.

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