The newspaper business was built for a world where one product served everyone and advertising paid for most of it. That model has gone. What replaces it is still being worked out title by title, from national groups to weeklies covering a single town.
Reader revenue is the clearest shift. Even Reach, which argued for free access for years, now puts some of its journalism behind a paywall, and the regional titles doing best changed their newsrooms before they asked anyone to pay. Ownership keeps changing too. National World rebuilt local editorships after years of centralisation, and the Observer is being reinvented as a premium print and digital title under new owners.
The strongest publishers understand the difference because they are not trying to be everything to everyone. They are trying to be essential to someone.
Chris Sherrard News media
Local news is where the pressure shows most. Millions of people now live without a dedicated local title, and new reader-funded and membership startups are moving into the gaps. Platforms are pulling back from news at the same time, which leaves trust and a direct relationship with readers as the assets that matter most.
Print hasn't disappeared either. Well-run weeklies still hold on to their readers, with circulation falling slowly while digital audiences grow.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on news media, from reader revenue and newsroom change to ownership, local news and trust, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Where is the growth opportunity for today’s publishers? Douglas McCabe tracks how the commercial model has evolved over the past fifty years and examines whether a better understanding of what online audiences want, will help drive future growth.
We asked Chris Sherrard, editor-in-chief of The Irish News, what does best practice publishing look like in news media? This is what he said…
After years of resisting paywalls, Reach is now launching them across its titles. But David Higgerson, Reach’s chief content officer, carefully avoided the word ‘U-turn’ when interviewed by Steve Dyson.
It’s one thing to think that readers should pay for your journalism, but the reality is that unless you improve your offering, then you will struggle to start charging for it, as DC Thomson Editor-in-Chief Frank O’Donnell tells Ciar Byrne.
How can you edit a regional newspaper when you never visit the area you’re writing about? By filling it with generic content, an approach that National World’s David Montgomery, the new owner of JPI Media, is rapidly doing away with.
Ray Snoddy talks to Co-CEO Rich Furness about the thinking behind Tortoise Media’s acquisition of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper and about their plans for its future.
What’s the outlook for national news media in 2024? Christian Broughton, CEO of The Independent, looks ahead.
There is a new generation of entrepreneurs launching local media businesses, bringing with them new ideas on business models and funding. Phil Clark looks at some of the stand-out examples.
With Meta backing away from ‘news’ and AI accelerating the growth of disinformation, we need to redouble our efforts to safeguard access to quality journalism, says News Media Association Chief Executive Owen Meredith.
East Lothian is not just the best place to live – it has the best newsbrand too. Alan Geere heads over the border to find out what’s happening in the world of Scottish weeklies.
The Rothermere family are close to taking the publisher of the Daily Mail private in a deal that would end almost 90 years of the company being listed on the stock exchange.
Apple charges 30% on in-app transactions, but Facebook says it has found a way for creators to circumvent this “tax”.
News Corp has had the most profitable first-quarter revenue since 2013, with revenue up 18% year-on-year at $2.5bn and net profit up to $267m from $47m.
The editor of the Archant-owned Ipswich Star, Natalie Sadler, has resigned her post after only four months in the job, citing family commitments and a change in career path as her reasons.
This partnership will help publishers search and embed video assets from Dailymotion’s catalogue of more than 2,000 content partners through Quintype’s Bold CMS.
The New York Times announced it now has more than 1m digital news subscriptions outside the United States, with total paid subscriptions standing at 8.3m.
Alexa SVP Tom Taylor told a conference Amazon wants users to spend less time talking to the voice assistant, saying that the future of consumer technology is ambient intelligence.
Glide Publishing Platform has rolled out a new fully integrated collaborative Live Reporting toolset into its cloud-native SaaS headless CMS.
Following Readly’s acquisition of Toutabo, the digital subscription service ePresse has unveiled a new co-branded name and logo.
Reporting Cop26, budget pre-briefing, the return of sleaze, our love-hate relationship with the French, the Queen’s health, asking the impossible of Netflix, Halyna Hutchins, and frontpage of the fortnight.
US betting companies FanDuel and DraftKings have reportedly submitted bids for subscription sports news group The Athletic, two months after it hired investment bank LionTree to explore its options.
Paul Dacre has left his position as chair and editor-in-chief of Daily Mail parent company Associated Newspapers.
Apple has asked a US court to stay a ruling which would enable app developers to link to third-party payment options within the App Store.
The NFRN has reacted angrily to the announcement by Newsquest that it is reducing retailers’ margins at the same time as increasing the price of its regional and local titles.
Newsquest has announced three editorial appointments for its titles in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
