British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher, Reach plc, has announced that it is putting a serious focus on adding subscriptions to its revenue mix.

Piers North, Chief Executive:

"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."

The company's half-year results revealed that its revenue declined 3.4% to £256.0m, print revenue of £194.1m (HY24: £204.0m) was down 4.8%, while digital revenue continued to grow to £61.1m (HY24: £60.0m), up 1.8%.

Reach plc's three priorities for growth will build on past successes while also introducing new initiatives:

• Connecting with audiences
• Attracting new audiences, on and off platform
• Driving deeper levels of engagement
• Putting video and audio content at the centre of newsrooms
• Differentiating brands with target audiences

Accelerating the use of tech and AI

• Upgrading data platform
• Progressing 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 for more information.