The UK’s top selling regional daily newspaper, the Belfast-based Irish News, has restructured its editorial team with more focus placed on video, newsletters and events.
The title reported print circulation of 20,857 in the first half of 2025 (down 8% year on year) with subscribers up 0.9% to 3,447.
Six new editorial and marketing appointments have been created for the title’s 80-strong team: marketing and subscriptions manager Rachel Bolton, deputy digital editor Gareth Fullerton, audience editor Kathryne McKenna, weekend editor Helen McGurk, video editor Dylan Hegarty and journalists Conor Sheils and Hannah Patterson. In addition, Aeneas Bonner has been promoted to deputy editor.
“It’s a complete newsroom restructure,” said editor-in-chief Chris Sherrard (who joined the title last year after previously working as editor in chief of Reach Ireland).
Before the restructure, he said, 70% of the newsroom’s “primary focus” was print which is now “nobody’s primary focus”.
“We’re doing [the restructure] the right way, without sacrificing print,” he added.
With the brand having been established since 1891, Sherrard looked at the pillars that have made The Irish News so successful, and “what that looks like digitally”.
“It always comes back to content,” he said. “Does that look like a podcast, [or a] short form video series? What does it look like for different audiences? And that’s where we’ve got much better, and that’s where a lot of our effort and attention has gone into. The newsroom restructure is designed to feed that as well and to drive that.”
He added: “I always felt from the outside that The Irish News was excellent in 2D. [But] you have to be reaching audiences in different places. [So] we’ve put a lot of focus on newsletter strategy.”
The Irish News offers four email newsletters: a daily briefing and weeklies The Business Insight, The Monday Club, and Sunday Selection from the editor.
“We currently have 55,000 newsletter subscribers and 160,000 registered users,” Sherrard said, with a registered user being “anyone registered to access the website, a newsletter or a subscription”.
He said the site also attracts more than three million monthly page views and 1.4 million unique users.
The title launched on Tiktok in April 2024, which is a “significant” source of revenue, and it is also said be making increasing money from video on Facebook and Youtube.
“We put a lot of effort and resources into video, and we’re averaging about 34 million views a month on video across all social platforms,” Sherrard said. The renewed approach to video allowed the paper to tap a large audience “that is never going to buy the paper”.
The Irish News has also invested in its two podcasts, Trading Up and The Irish History Boys, and made events a “big part” of its business, Sherrard said, largely through awards.
“It’s about diversifying sources of revenue and opening it up to sources of revenue that we probably never have done before.”
“I think we’re managing [the decline of print] pretty well at the minute,” Sherrard said.
He added the paper considers it a “success” to maintain “single digit year-on-year” print decline, and it needs a digital audience “prepared to pay for journalism… that’s why subscriptions are so [crucial]”.
When Sherrard joined, he put “a lot of effort” into subscriptions and digital transformation, the latter “previously a missing link” with the publisher. Now, the paper is intent on being “laser focused” on those willing to “put their hands in their pockets”, said Sherrard, with the paywall currently doing “doing very well”.
Digital access to the Irish News costs £14.99 a month, or £150 a year, and includes unlimited access to articles, full access to the app, subscriber-only Q&As, puzzles and a digital version of the print edition.
The Irish News currently has 3,447 digital edition subscribers according to ABC, which is more than any other UK regional daily title.
“To me, we’re only at the in the foothills of subscriptions – there’s a lot more we can do,” Sherrard said.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
