All posts tagged: Guardian News and Media

Guardian grows revenue to record £282m boosted by US operation

Guardian grows revenue to record £282m boosted by US operation

Published by Sam Flores

Anna Bateson, chief executive officer of The Guardian. Picture: The Guardian Guardian revenue from paying online readers grew by 17% in the year to March 2026 to reach a new record of £126m. Overall revenue for Guardian Media Group grew by 2% (£6m) to £282m in the year to the end of March 2026, despite losing around £18m in annual print revenue following the sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media in April 2025. The Guardian said this was a record revenue total for its news operation (Guardian Media Group has made more revenue in the past, but this would have included revenue from former subsidiary businesses). Revenue growth was mainly driven by the US side of the business, which was up 14% from £55.8m to £63.8m. UK revenue fell from £170.4m to £167.6m in the financial year, likely reflecting the impact of the sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media. Non-UK revenue now makes up 41% of the business. The Guardian now claims to have 1.4 million recurring paying digital supporters (up 116,000 year …

Revealed: Future of Media Awards 2026 winners

Revealed: Future of Media Awards 2026 winners

Published by Sam Flores

Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford introduces the Future of Media Awards 2025. Picture: ASV Photography for Press Gazette The Times and The Belfast Telegraph were named winners of the national and regional websites of the year at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Awards 2026. The Future of Media Awards judges said The Times “has rewritten the narrative of legacy media decline” while they felt The Belfast Telegraph demonstrated “great use of video and live journalism and smart use of the archive as part of an impressive paid subscriptions strategy”. Specialist electric car website Electrifying.com was named specialist/B2B website of the year for “great content presented in an engaging and accessible style” and “impressive” revenue and audience figures. The Economist was recognised as publisher of the year as the judges said the launch of its on-demand premium video product Insider “feels like the future of journalism for such an established and trusted voice in publishing”. Also winning a Digital Storytelling prize, The Economist was one of just three publishers to win more than one award on …

Live blogging mastery: Tips for publishers from Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow

Live blogging mastery: Tips for publishers from Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow

Published by Sam Flores

The Guardian political corresspondent Andrew Sparrow. Picture: Andrew Sparrow Publishers looking to succeed in live blogs need to focus on “intensely newsy” topics and write with personality, according to The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow. The reporter has written a live blog on politics for the publisher since 2008, which he was recognised for when he won Press Gazette’s Political journalist of the year award in 2011. He told Press Gazette why live blogs aren’t for every story, and how former editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s early investment in tech helped lead to The Guardian seeing around 15% of its total page views come from live blogs. How did you start out in live blogging? Sparrow started live blogging for The Guardian “when website news was just taking off”, with the role advertised as being to “constantly update the politics news”. Sparrow added that having to continually rewrite a conventional news article for breaking news “didn’t make very much sense”. “In 2008, it felt like digital news was being written according to rules that were created for print, and …

Future of Media Awards shortlist 2026 revealed

Future of Media Awards shortlist 2026 revealed

Published by Sam Flores

The i Paper executive editor Mark Davies, associate head of news Zoe Drewett and digital director Nick Petrie (centre three, left to right) pick up the Website of the Year (National/International) award at the Future of Media Awards 2025, alongside host Robin Morgan and PushPushGo CEO Renata Okrajni. Picture: ASV Photography for Press Gazette Press Gazette is proud to reveal the shortlist for the Future of Media Awards 2026. The Future of Media Awards, now in their fifth year, celebrate editorial, commercial and product excellence across digital news media in the UK and around the world. Categories celebrate the best digital storytelling, online video, podcasts, live journalism and newsletters of the past year. Judges also decided the best websites, apps, publishers and media innovators of the year. Work is recognised in both national/international and specialist/regional categories to ensure smaller publications are also recognised. The Future of Media Awards also applaud the best advertising technology, reader revenue strategies and publisher tech partners of the past year. Entries were eligible if they were published (or work was …

Guardian to create 55 new jobs in digital and global push

Guardian to create 55 new jobs in digital and global push

Published by Sam Flores

Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner speaking at WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress on 1 June 2026. Picture: WAN-IFRA The Guardian plans to create around 55 new jobs in the UK, US and Australia over the next year. The 55 new permanent roles will be across editorial, product development, analytics and commercial. The jobs are part of a multi-million pound investment designed to build a sustainable long-term future for The Guardian by making it “more visual, digital, global and experimental”. Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner first revealed in an interview with Press Gazette last year that The Guardian had secured funding for a multi-year transformation programme known internally as Project Berger from owners the Scott Trust board. The Scott Trust holds an endowment fund for The Guardian which stood at £1.25bn last year. Guardian advertising director James Fleetham has been appointed as commercial director for Project Berger. New jobs coming in Guardian video and audio The newsbrand is aiming to reach audiences in new ways globally, especially via more audio and video journalism. The Guardian made seven external hires …

UK online audience ranking 2026: Top 25 website owners

UK online audience ranking 2026: Top 25 website owners

Published by Sam Flores

Publishers are losing ground against tech platforms in the UK as Meta and Alphabet increase their dominance of online media, a new Press Gazette ranking of UK online audience for April 2026 reveals. Our ranking of the biggest website owners in the UK by audience, based on Ipsos iris data, shows Meta and Alphabet significantly growing their already dominant positions. UK internet users spent 122 billion minutes with Alphabet-owned websites (including Google and Youtube) in April 2026, up 14% year on year. That is more than 80 minutes per day, per person on average. Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) is the second biggest website owner in the UK with 117 billion online minutes in April (up 10%). The two US giants are reckoned to reach 99% (Alphabet) and 97% (Meta) of the UK online population. Tiktok owner Bytedance is the fastest-growing website publisher in the UK with time spent on its platform growing 30% year on year in April to 33 billion minutes. These three companies are some way ahead of the next …

Viner says Guardian has seen decade of booming foreign and reader revenue

Viner says Guardian has seen decade of booming foreign and reader revenue

Published by Sam Flores

Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner speaking at WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress on 1 June 2026. Picture: WAN-IFRA More than 80% of revenue coming from outside the UK at The Guardian did not exist ten years ago, editor-in-chief Katharine Viner has revealed. Viner was speaking at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress about The Guardian’s ongoing strategy to become more global, more reader revenue funded, more human and more digital. Axios reported last month that The Guardian’s US operation made revenue of $81.4m (£60.4m) in the year to 31 March 2026, up 25% year on year and the highest since the newsbrand launched in the US 15 years ago. US revenue came mostly from digital reader revenue (71%). Some 8% of Guardian Media Group revenue came from outside the UK ten years ago, increasing to more than 40% today. Viner told the Congress that in the year to 31 March 2026, digital reader revenue from people who pay regularly as “recurring supporters” and one-off donations was up 17% to £125m. Two years ago in 2023/2024 digital …

Guardian photographer ‘exposed to risk’ after Farage shares press card picture

Guardian photographer ‘exposed to risk’ after Farage shares press card picture

Published by Sam Flores

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage gives a speech to supporters on Clacton Pier in Essex on 3 July 2024. Picture: PA Media/Ian West Reform leader Nigel Farage has said being visited by a Guardian photographer underlined why he needed extra security. The Guardian has issued a statement in defence of its journalist after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage shared an image of the photographer’s press card on social media. The photographer was taking photos of Farage from a public path, according to The Guardian, while working on a story related to allegations that the Reform leader failed to disclose a £5m gift from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire. Farage said, sharing a picture of the journalist’s press card on social media: “My security team just found this journalist from The Guardian at my property. This is exactly why I need security. Completely unacceptable.” The Guardian, which broke the story on 29 April that Farage has received a secret personal donation from a Thailand-based billionaire, said the photographer showed his NUJ Press Card when asked for identification …

How AI overviews are killing publisher traffic by topic data

How AI overviews are killing publisher traffic by topic data

Published by Sam Flores

Google AI Overviews result for ‘hantavirus symptoms’ query. Below the AIO and first result there is a Top Stories box including articles from the BBC, CNN and The Independent Health is the topic vertical most vulnerable to losing clicks as a result of Google’s AI Overviews, according to new Sistrix data shared with Press Gazette. Looking at data from three months at the start of 2026, Sistrix estimates that health sections on major news brands will have seen links to articles supplanted by an AI-written summary 72% of the time in Google search results. Sistrix has found that for keywords where an AI Overview appears at the top of Google’s search results, the average rate of people clicking on the first search result drops from 27% to 11%, meaning a clickthrough decline of almost 60%. Healthline was the fastest-falling major news website in the UK in March, losing 48% of its audience year on year according to Ipsos iris. The second most heavily-affected vertical was tech (where AI overviews appear 47% of the time) followed …

Mediahuis joins UK news giants as founder member of SPUR

Mediahuis joins UK news giants as founder member of SPUR

Published by Sam Flores

Gert Ysebaert, CEO of Mediahuis Group, speaks at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Copenhagen on 28 May 2024. Picture: WAN-IFRA Mediahuis has joined the SPUR coalition of major news organisations aiming to develop shared AI licensing standards for the industry. Mediahuis joins SPUR (Standards for Publisher Usage Rights) alongside the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, the BBC and Sky News who were attached when the initiative went public in February. The intention is for SPUR to help shape rules and infrastructure around how news content is used in AI models, creating common standards around permission and payment. Mediahuis chief executive Gert Ysebaert said: “The SPUR coalition addresses one of the key challenges facing our industry today: ensuring that quality journalism is used responsibly in the development of AI. “Shared technical standards, licensing frameworks and reliable measurement tools are essential to secure a fair and transparent value exchange for our content. “I believe this is a defining moment for European publishers as well, to join forces so that together we can actively shape …