Reach is planning to cut about 220 editorial jobs and create 60 new roles as it shifts focus away from page views and volume.
This will result in a net loss of around 160 editorial jobs.
Reach owns national and regional titles including the Mirror, Express, Daily Star, Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo and dozens of smaller local newsbrands.
Chief content officer David Higgerson told staff in a memo: “The roles being created are ones which are needed to drive digital revenue growth, particularly in subscriptions and in longer-form video, and enhance brand reputation through well-read journalism which creates loyalty.”
The changes also include the closure of three online-only brands: Kent Live (which launched in 2016), Aberdeen Live and Galway Beo (both launched in 2021).
Higgerson said: “This is not a reflection of the work done on these titles, or the commitment of the journalists on them. The decision is based on our market position in these areas.
“In almost every market we operate in, locally, we are the dominant publisher, even after the page view declines we have seen this year. This is not the case in these three markets, which is why we are taking the decision to exit them, while focusing efforts on the markets where we make the greatest impact.”
Overall, the proposals follow the announcement from chief executive Piers North in July that Reach’s “future will be less about volume and more about original content, distinctive brands and securing better returns”.
Higgerson said the new North Star metric for Reach will be active engaged time – a major change for a publisher that has for a long time largely prioritised page views.
Higgerson told staff: “We are in the middle of a mammoth shift in how audiences want content and journalism. To ensure a sustainable future for our journalism, we must focus our investment in the areas where our audiences spend the most time and where our revenue reflects the value of our work.
“In our newsrooms, that means less emphasis on story volume and more on original journalism and distinctive brands. It also means that ‘active engaged time’ will become our north star metric, over and above page views, by the end of the year.”
Higgerson pointed to referral declines from Google as necessitating the shift, following algorithm changes to the Google Discover mobile feed and the arrival of AI Overviews, but also criticised the BBC’s moves into online local news.
“Locally, we continue to be challenged by an expansionist BBC, whose local output mirrors what is already being created by publishers, by us, up to 70% of the time,” he said.
Since the end of last year Reach has begun to shift towards a digital subscriptions strategy that sees people paying for extra “premium” content and fewer advertising. The publisher now has more than 50,000 paying subscribers across 22 titles.
Higgerson said the proposals include editors “carrying out changes specific to their titles, to ensure they reach as many people as possible through journalism which their brands will be famous for, and converting more people to become paying subscribers”.
The plan follows a net reduction of up to 186 editorial roles in late 2025 in a major editorial reorganisation that created a central live news work and set the publisher up for generating more video and audio and less text-only content.
In 2022 Reach had 4,658 staff of which 3,369 were defined as production and editorial. At the end of last year that total had fallen to 3,423 of which 2,494 were production and editorial – a reduction of 1,235 jobs.
Voluntary redundancy schemes have separately already been run for some editorial roles this year.
Higgerson told editorial staff a range of non-people budgets have already been reduced “in order to protect as many jobs as possible, and other teams across the business have seen or are seeing reductions this year too, but the scale of the challenge facing our wider industry is such that we have to enter next year a smaller editorial organisation”.
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