Reach plc, which owns news publications including AberdeenLive, as well as national titles like the Mirror, Express, Daily Record and Daily Star, is set introduce digital subscriptions as it embarks on a "new chapter".
Announcing its half-year results up to June 30 this morning, Reach also revealed a new set of priorities to drive growth - including the introduction of paywalls.
Piers North, Reach chief executive, said: "Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for our business, as we launch the priorities that will fuel our growth. These include initiatives to reach new audiences, increase our video content and accelerate our tech and AI capabilities. Crucially, we'll do more work to diversify our revenues, putting a serious focus on adding subscriptions to our revenue mix.
"Over the past six months we have performed well. Our audience growth has been driven by our innovative content and distribution hubs, our in-house recommender tools, and our US expansion. Digital revenue continues to grow, supported by reliable print revenues, despite a challenging market and set against a strong events comparator.
"With our market leading scale, editorial impact at both national and local levels, and strong operating profit margin, we are confident that our priorities will set us up for future success."
This morning's announcement said the firm's three priorities for growth are "connecting, accelerating and diversifying", with "developing and rolling out digital subscriptions" part of revenue diversification plans.
Connecting with audiences
- Attracting new audiences, on and off platform
- Driving deeper levels of engagement
- Putting video and audio content at the centre of our newsrooms
- Differentiating our brands with target audiences
Accelerating the use of tech and AI
- Upgrading our data platform
- Progressing our advertising cohort strategy
- Innovating with AI
- Scaling B2B tools
Diversifying revenues
- Developing and rolling out digital subscriptions
- Driving continued growth in affiliates and ecommerce
- Increasing commercialisation of video content
Click here to read the full half-year report published this morning.
FTSE 100
The UK's flagship share index, the FTSE 100, was up 58 points at 9,118 shortly after opening this morning.
Brent crude oil futures were up 0.79% at $69.13 a barrel.
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