Hearst UK has returned to revenue growth after three years of decline fuelled by traffic loss from Google and other platforms.
The publisher of brands including Good Housekeeping UK, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Elle and Digital Spy reported newsstand, subscription, print advertising and digital advertising revenue were all up year on year in 2025.
Accounts filed for the year to 31 December for parent company The National Magazine Company Ltd showed total revenue up 5% year on year to £110.1m.
This is still the second-lowest revenue total for the publisher as far back as its accounts go on Companies House (to 1994). Compared to ten years ago, revenue was down by 61%.
The publisher also moved back into a pre-tax profit of £1m, following a loss before tax of £5.2m in 2024 which included exceptional restructuring/redundancy costs of £3.3m.
Operating losses narrowed, from £10.4m to £3.9m.
Staff costs were cut by nearly £5m year on year to £45.9m in 2025. Staff headcount fell by 84 to 584 people in 2025. Editorial staff numbers fell by 27 to 300.
Total paid subscriptions were up 6% in 2025 to cross the one-million mark by the end of the year, according to the accounts. In 2024 they had grown by 4% to 987,000.
Brands in growth in 2025 included Harper’s Bazaar (across print and digital, to 74,021 total average ABC circulation), Women’s Health (in newsstand sales and digital) and Good Housekeeping (in digital).
Since 2023 Hearst UK has launched several membership offerings, which include perks and community features that go beyond standard subscriptions, on Elle, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Runner’s World, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar. New member experiences, rewards and benefits continue to be added.
Subscription growth was attributed to “the strength of our core subscription base and continued growth in digital subscriptions”.
Hearst UK’s return to digital advertising growth (up double digits) was attributed to commercial partnerships and “a rebound in audience across most of our brands”. This follows a 12% decline in average UK monthly page views across its portfolio in 2024.
UK online page views were said to be down 7% year on year to 22.7 million per month across the Hearst UK portfolio.
Hearst UK’s biggest website by monthly audience size, Good Housekeeping, doubled its audience from July 2024 to 2026, reaching 5.5 million people according to Ipsos iris.
However, its second-biggest website Digital Spy, which does not have an accompanying print magazine or subscription, was down by 37% in the same two-year period.
Print advertising revenue was up for the second year running.
The Hearst UK accounts said: “The customer strategy continues to focus on three key areas; maximising newsstand revenues, growing digital subscriptions through content distribution, and increasing direct paid subscriber relationships through new membership launches, improved digital product, and wider subscriber choice (bundles).”
The publisher added: “The Group continued to benefit from its diversification strategy, with the Good Housekeeping Institute testing facilities continuing to sustain the Group’s growing accreditation business and contributing to the robust affiliate revenue performance.”
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