UK social media focused publisher Digitalbox has revealed how changes to Facebook’s algorithm in early April dealt a severe blow to its revenue.
Digitalbox heavily relies on social media, particularly Facebook, for referral traffic to brands including: Entertainment Daily, TV Guide, The Daily Mash, The Tab and The Poke.
It revealed this morning how revenue for the first half of the year fell by 7% to £1.7m as “changes made by [Facebook owner] Meta to favour video-led creator content created significant audience headwinds for Digitalbox and other publishers reliant on social distribution”.
Profit (adjusted EBITDA) fell from £300,000 in the same period a year ago to zero in the first half of 2026.
Digitalbox chief executive James Carter explained how changes from tech platforms have put businesses like his, which rely chiefly on programmatic advertising served on websites for revenue, under pressure.
In an earnings call on 24 September he said: “Website, direct website journeys have come under pressure over recent years. And the big tech players are increasingly trying to hold consumers within their walled gardens for longer.
“That’s a result of changing technology, AI answering consumer questions. It’s a result of elevating on-platform video distribution above publisher distribution of content on the platforms and a whole raft of measures which the big tech players are using in order to steal audience share.”
He said that on 2 or 3 April 2026 Meta rolled out an algorithm change across its platforms which changed the way creator-led video landed in content feeds for users.
Digitalbox said its audience reach among followers of its brands on Facebook was retained – amplification of content to users across the wider platform was “crushed”. In some instances, it said, this reduced the reach of its brands on Facebook by 75%.
Carter said the backdrop to this is an “almighty battle” between Facebook and Tiktok to see who can “harness the best creators in order to make their platforms as sticky as possible for users”.
The Digitalbox experience suggests that old-school publisher Facebook posts which tease an interesting piece of website content have been heavily downgraded in favour of original video published directly to the platform.
Carter said that Georgia-Blu, who creates videos about Love Island and other entertainment topics, saw a massive boost following the algorithm change with 96% of her reach coming from non-followers on Facebook and Instagram.
Overall, the Digitalbox website audience was down 28% in the first half of the year. But it improved the advertising value of individual website sessions by 20% in the period.
Digitalbox is scaling up its original video production to improve its revenue from direct advertising share on platforms like Facebook, Tiktok and Instagram and to enable it sell native marketing delivered via videos on those platforms.
To this end it has signed up 200 creators to work with Digitalbox on a revenue-share basis and it plans to produce 500 original videos per month
Carter said: “By offering creators the chance to work under the entertainment umbrella as an example, with its 2.5 million followers, it affords them an opportunity to get much greater reach than they would have otherwise done.”
Other Digitalbox brands including Emmerdale Insider, Eastenders Insider and Royal Insider.
See Digitalbox’s full results for the six months ended 30 June 2026 here.
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