14.6% revenue loss for national newspaper firm despite double digit digital growth

One of the country’s largest newspaper publishing groups has reported an almost 15 per cent year-on-year revenue decrease.

Publishing group Reach has published its results for the 52 weeks ending December 27 2020.

During 2020 the company’s revenues fell by 14.6 per cent on the previous year, from £702.5m to £600.2m.

Reach’s digital business saw double digit growth of 10.6 per cent, while its print business dropped by 18.9 per cent - a result that the firm has attributed to the disruption caused by the pandemic.

The firm owns 240 regional papers in addition to the national publications like Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and OK! magazine.

Jim Mullen chief executive officer at Reach, commented: “Reach has become a stronger business in 2020 thanks to the ongoing hard work and commitment of our people during this unprecedented year.

“A radical reorganisation of our business model not only makes us more efficient, it also enables our changing culture, which is evolving to support a growth led agenda.

“We have delivered our strategic milestones ahead of our original expectations and will now increase investment to accelerate delivery, focusing on the use of enhanced customer insight to drive engagement and our medium-term objective of doubling digital revenues.

“While macro-economic uncertainty resulting from COVID-19 clearly remains, the Group is well placed to make good progress during 2021 and to generate increased long term value as the strategy gathers momentum.”

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