Reach, the owner of the Daily Mirror and Daily Express, is preparing to shrink its editorial operation further as it responds to a steep deterioration in the economics of regional and national news publishing.

According to the company, 220 editorial posts are set to go, while three local digital titles - KentLive, AberdeenLive and GalwayBeo - are due to close. The move comes as Reach says it is trying to protect as many jobs as possible elsewhere in the business, but concludes that the scale of the pressure facing the wider industry leaves it with little choice but to enter next year with a smaller newsroom.

David Higgerson, Reach’s chief content officer, said he and the editorial senior leadership team had already pared back a range of non-staff budgets and that other parts of the group had also been asked to absorb reductions this year. Even so, he said the company could not escape the conclusion that more drastic changes were required. His remarks underline how severely the publisher is being hit by the combined effects of weakening traffic, especially from search engines, and tougher competition for audiences and advertising.

The latest cuts are part of a longer retrenchment at Reach, which has been repeatedly forced to trim costs as print revenues have declined and digital monetisation has proved harder than expected. In November 2023, the group announced plans to cut about 450 jobs, saying it needed to reduce operating costs by 5% to 6% in 2024 amid continuing weakness in online and print advertising markets. That announcement followed earlier rounds of redundancies, illustrating the extent to which the publisher has been trying to remake itself around a more efficient digital model.

This time, however, the company is not only cutting roles but also redirecting resources towards areas it believes can support future growth. Reach has said it intends to create 60 posts in subscriptions and longer-form video, signalling that it sees paid-for content and richer formats as more promising than relying on search referrals alone. The strategic shift reflects a broader reckoning across British media, where publishers have spent years chasing traffic from Google only to find those audiences increasingly volatile, while the BBC and other rivals continue to dominate attention online.

For staff, though, the immediate reality is another wave of uncertainty. The reduction in newsroom headcount, coupled with the closure of local titles, suggests Reach is betting that a leaner editorial structure will be enough to sustain its core brands in a market that remains under intense strain. The company’s challenge now is whether it can maintain coverage quality and audience reach while asking fewer journalists to do more work.

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Source: Noah Wire Services