Media News

Reach regional brands in UK focus on newsletter approach

An announcement on the Press Gazette site reads:

Nine Reach regional brands have adopted a “newsletter-led approach” meaning the websites are no longer their “flagship” means of content delivery.

The publisher initially trialled this “engagement-first model” with five of its “Live” brands – in Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire – beginning in November.

It is now following suit in Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Hampshire at the same time as making 200 redundancies across the business, as announced on Wednesday.

There will be no job losses on the four sites changing to the newsletter model, Press Gazette understands.

The new approach means that although these brands still have their own websites, the sites support the newsletters rather than the other way around. This strategy can be particularly successful with hyperlocal stories and means journalists can focus more on stories that are most relevant to a community, Reach said.

The first five sites to pilot the new model met their newsletter page view targets and, in December, grew loyal page views which Reach said it considers an increasingly important metric. For this reason newsletters have been seen as an important pillar of Reach’s customer value strategy seeking to use data to learn more about its audiences.

Mariam Ahmed

Recent Posts

Carnevali departs Reuters for a new opportunity

Reuters reporter David Carnevali has left the news organization for a new opportunity. "I left Reuters to…

1 min ago

Visram departing Fast Company to freelance

Fast Company staff writer Talib Visram is leaving the publication after five years to freelance. His reporting…

1 min ago

Grist hires Horn-Muller to cover food and agriculture

Ayurella Horn-Muller has been hired by Grist to cover food and agriculture. She has been…

2 mins ago

WSJ hires Brown to cover sustainability

The Wall Street Journal has hired Claire Brown to cover sustainability. Her work has appeared…

2 mins ago

Law360 tax reporter Serre departing

Jared Serre, a tax reporter at Law360, is leaving the news organization next month. He…

18 hours ago

Reuters Breakingviews hires WSJ’s Rubin as columnist

Lauren Silva Laughlin, U.S. editor of Reuters Breakingviews, sent out the following on Tuesday: I’m…

20 hours ago