Reach is hoping that its Google-backed investment in email newsletters will build on its huge audience scale and lead to a deeper relationship with readers, according to chief audience officer David Higgerson.

“The reason for doing that was [that] what in old money we’d call ‘daily newspaper news’ is as relevant in areas that only have weekly newspapers as it is in Birmingham or Manchester.

“What the newsletters do within that is they enable us to deepen our relationships with readers, so that we aren’t just expecting them to visit us every day.”