Reach cuts 13% of commercial roles as page views collapse 40%

The UK's largest news publisher is cutting 13% of commercial staff (around 65 roles) alongside 160 editorial roles, and shuttering three online titles: Aberdeen Live, Galway Beo and Kent Live. The trigger is brutal: page views fell 40% year-on-year as referral traffic from AI search and social collapsed, dragging volume-sensitive indirect revenue down 16.2%. In its half-year update Reach reported revenue down 9% to £232.9m, with digital down 11.3% and print down 8.3% despite a 22% drop in circulation volumes. Chief content officer David Higgerson told staff the company is "in the middle of a mammoth shift in how audiences want content and journalism", and that by year-end Reach will treat "active engaged time" rather than page views as its north-star metric. The strategic pivot is striking for a publisher that long mocked paywalls: CEO Piers North now wants "less about volume and more about original content" and "greater independence from referral traffic".

The crux

The largest free-access news publisher in Britain has conceded that a page-view-and-referral advertising model is no longer viable, and is betting its future on engagement depth and direct audience rather than reach.

Sell-side read

This is the canary for every volume-dependent publisher. When Reach, the biggest ad-funded newsroom in the UK, re-bases from page views to engaged time, the indirect, volume-linked programmatic revenue you rely on is the next thing advertisers will re-price.

Watch

Reach's Q4 metrics: whether "active engaged time" actually converts into the subscription and commerce revenue that pays for the 200-plus job cuts.