All posts tagged: pwfree

Andrew Pierce bid farewell to Daily Mail with Paul Dacre dinner

Andrew Pierce bid farewell to Daily Mail with Paul Dacre dinner

Published by Sam Flores

Andrew Pierce and Miriam Cates on GB News show Britain’s Newsroom. Picture: GB News Youtube screenshot Longtime Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce has said he left the paper to slow down and focus on his work at GB News. Pierce, also a consulting editor, left the Daily Mail in July but did not make a public announcement about his departure at the time. Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, who hired Pierce for the title 17 years ago, hosted Pierce for a farewell dinner at the Garrick Club last Thursday (30 July) alongside feature writer Richard Kay and literary editor Sandra Parsons. Earlier the same day the High Court finished hearing legal arguments about costs due to be paid from Prince Harry and his co-claimants towards the £34.5m in costs racked up by Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers defending itself against allegations of unlawful newsgathering. Dacre had called the judgment in the Daily Mail’s favour “an overwhelming vindication of our journalism”. Pierce told Press Gazette: “In 47 years in newspapers the Daily Mail and Paul Dacre …

RAJARs Q2 2026: GB News radio audience up 34% as BBC dips

RAJARs Q2 2026: GB News radio audience up 34% as BBC dips

Published by Sam Flores

GB News Radio logo and presenter Michelle Dewberry. Picture: GB News GB News Radio recorded the strongest growth year on year among news and current affairs stations in the latest quarterly RAJAR listening figures. The station saw its weekly reach increase by more than a third (34%) to 731,000 listeners, while its total listening hours also recorded the biggest year-on-year increase, rising 78% to 5.4 million. RAJAR defines weekly reach as the number of UK adults who listen to a station for at least five minutes during an average week. Compared to last quarter, GB News Radio grew its listeners by 8% and its listening hours by 24%. The station also saw a boost in its breakfast programme listening figures, with the show’s weekly reach up by 70% year on year and 44% quarter on quarter to 325,000 – overtaking Talk in the slot. Its average hours per listener also increased the most compared to last quarter, up 16% to 7.4 hours. News UK’s Talk (previously Talkradio) recorded the second-biggest increase in listeners compared to last year, …

People Inc not blocking Google ‘at the moment’ as it rolls out digital subscriptions

People Inc not blocking Google ‘at the moment’ as it rolls out digital subscriptions

Published by Sam Flores

People Inc chief executive Neil Vogel speaking at Press Gazette’s Media Strategy Network USA event in March 2025. Picture: Press Gazette/Blaine Pennington People Inc CEO Neil Vogel has said the publisher won’t be blocking Google yet despite falling referral traffic. Vogel told The Wall Street Journal last month that “blocking them entirely”, in reference to Google bots crawling its content, was “100% on the table”. He has now clarified that People Inc is “clearly not turning this off now. But it is a tool that we can use, and it is something we will constantly be looking at.” Google made up about 21% of all traffic to 19 core People Inc brands in the past quarter, compared to roughly two-thirds at its peak. Vogel told an investor call on Tuesday that “at the moment, the scale definitely tips in the favour of maintaining the status quo” because of the amount of traffic still coming in from Google. “But this is a trade-off we’ll monitor. Now we’re not like galloping on a high horse trying to …

More people spending time on mobile apps, new report finds

More people spending time on mobile apps, new report finds

Published by Sam Flores

Apple iPhone apps – including Apple News app. Picture: Pixabay/3D Animation Production Company People are spending more time on mobile apps but publishers are failing to grab their attention with push notifications, according to a new report into app engagement and user habits. The average session duration – i.e. the minutes users spent in apps – was up significantly on last year, the Pugpig 2026 Media App Report found, attributing it to “an increase in richer, more interactive experiences that are encouraging users to stay longer”. Average sessions per month also rose modestly on last year. The report found app engagement is driven by so-called “super users”, with 20% of monthly active users accounting for three-quarters of all app sessions, including news. Most major news platforms have an app edition, with the Times and Daily Mail leading on engagement. A Pugpig spokesperson said the data pointed to there being “significant value” for publishers in “deepening the relationship with the most-engaged readers”, adding: “That means identifying the content and features that most encourage repeat use.” In …

‘Funny and excoriating’ Sun columnist and broadcaster Rod Liddle dies aged 66

‘Funny and excoriating’ Sun columnist and broadcaster Rod Liddle dies aged 66

Published by Sam Flores

Liddle presented a show on Times Radio. Picture: Youtube / Times Radio Rod Liddle, columnist for The Sun and The Sunday Times and Saturday morning presenter on Times Radio, has died aged 66 after a short illness. Liddle also wrote regularly for The Spectator where he was associate editor and columnist. His final columns for The Sun, The Sunday Times and The Spectator were all published around the beginning of June. Liddle covered politics, culture and social issues during his career, with his last column for The Sun titled “Sturgeon plays the victim card but how didn’t she know about ex-husband’s crimes”. Liddle started his career in journalism with the South Wales Echo in Cardiff after graduating from London School of Economics. He then became a speechwriter for the Labour Party front bench in 1983 until 1987. He died at The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesborough on Sunday (2 August). Sun editor-in-chief Victoria Newton said: “Rod was a brilliant, fearless columnist who was much loved by all at The Sun. “A champion of press freedom, no …

Summer news diary 3 August – 6 September: Edinburgh Fringe, Burnham ‘listening tour’, Clacton by-election

Summer news diary 3 August – 6 September: Edinburgh Fringe, Burnham ‘listening tour’, Clacton by-election

Published by Sam Flores

Edinburgh Fringe in 2025. Picture: Serge Cornu / Shutterstock.com Advance UK Summer The Foresight News diary on Press Gazette is taking a break over the summer as the news agenda gets a little quieter, so this week we’re highlighting the key events over the next five weeks. We’ll be back on September 4 – in the meantime, subscribers can see our regular updates at www.foresightnews.com. While we’re away, Andy Burnham is expected to be keeping busy with a ‘listening tour’ to speak to voters in so-called ‘danger zones’ for the Labour party, including Aberdeen, Port Talbot and the south of England – look out for updates on our dedicated Burnham hot topic. August 3-9 Monday (August 3): Met Office publishes July climate statistics; Palantir publishes results. Tuesday (August 4): SpaceX releases first earnings report following record IPO; BP, Paramount, AMD and Saudi Aramco also publish results. Wednesday (August 5): Enforcement of EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces begins; Motion is due to request bail for Andrew and Tristan Tate in Miami. Friday (August 7): Edinburgh Fringe …

Police and crime commissioner to pay Allison Pearson damages

Police and crime commissioner to pay Allison Pearson damages

Published by Sam Flores

Allison Pearson Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson has received an apology and “substantial damages” from the police and crime commissioner for Essex after a High Court judge found press statements made about her could be defamatory. Pearson brought legal action against commissioner Roger Hirst over statements he made in an LBC interview and an article on the Conservative Home website, which she alleged related to a social media post she wrote. She said the post on X, which has since been deleted, led officers to investigate her for a potential offence of inciting racial hatred, knock on her door on Remembrance Sunday in November 2024, and invite her to be interviewed under caution. The investigation was later dropped without any charges being brought. In the interview on LBC, Hirst, who did not comment on Pearson’s case specifically, said: “We can’t go around ignoring crimes just because it’s politically sensitive, and we perhaps need to just think about how our black and Asian communities are hearing this debate.” In April, Mr Justice Chamberlain ruled Hirst’s words “did bear the …

Mail spent £35m fighting Harry’s ‘campaign for Leveson 2’ privacy claim

Mail spent £35m fighting Harry’s ‘campaign for Leveson 2’ privacy claim

Published by Sam Flores

Lord Justice Brian Leveson unveils his report following an inquiry into media practices on November 29, 2012. Picture: Reuters/Dan Kitwood The publisher of the Daily Mail racked up £34.5m in costs fighting unproven allegations of unlawful newsgathering and is seeking an initial payment from Prince Harry and his co-claimants of £10m. Associated Newspapers is also arguing it should receive indemnity costs, meaning more than the usual proportion of costs from the losing parties, in part because they believe the trial was used by the claimants to pursue a political campaign. Prince Harry, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley and former Lib Dem MP Sir Simon Hughes failed to prove any of their 97 allegations of unlawful information gathering, including phone-hacking, in an 11-week trial held this year. Any application for a potential appeal will only be dealt with after the question of costs has been finalised. It has now been revealed that the Mail publisher spent £34,481,622.54 fighting the case. Six of the seven claimants had …

Scotland’s Daily Record targeted by fascist-style protesters at office

Scotland’s Daily Record targeted by fascist-style protesters at office

Published by Sam Flores

Screenshot of video showing protest outside Daily Record office on Friday 24 July. Picture: Youtube screenshot The editor of the Daily Record has pledged to “continue to report without fear” after a fascist-style protest was held outside the newspaper’s office last week. Around 50 people dressed fully in black stood silently in a military-style formation in the road outside the Glasgow office building on Friday, appearing to imitate the Blackshirts of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. They appear to have taken umbrage with coverage of their “silent protests” held around Scotland in the Daily Record, which revealed one of the men involved as a “notorious football thug”. The gathering outside the newspaper office was the fourth in Scotland this summer and the third in Glasgow. The crowd of protesters stood in a military grid formation while one member placed a flag baring a picture of a wolf alongside the name “ALBA DEFENSOR” (meaning “Defend Scotland”) and the slogan “protecting Scotland” outside the office doors. The flag was accompanied by a burning candle and the handwritten note: …

News diary 27 July – 2 August: Apple and Meta results, Manchester mayor election and Commonwealth Games

News diary 27 July – 2 August: Apple and Meta results, Manchester mayor election and Commonwealth Games

Published by Sam Flores

Atheltic women’s 100m heats during the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018. Picture: Abdul Razak Latif / Shutterstock.com Leading the week Monday (July 27): Andrew and Tristan Tate due back in court in Florida fighting extradition to the UK to face rape charges; Donald Trump delivers remarks in Michigan; Sentencing hearing begins for Robert Bush over funeral fraud convictions. Tuesday (July 28): Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy expected to be among attendees at Washington DC memorial services for Lindsey Graham; Men’s and women’s 100m finals at the Commonwealth Games. Wednesday (July 29): High Court hearing following judgment earlier this month in Prince Harry’s case against Associated Newspapers; US interest rate decision and press conference with Fed chair Kevin Warsh; Meta and Microsoft release results. Thursday (July 30): Election to replace Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester; UK interest rate decision and press conference with BoE Governor Andrew Bailey; Apple, Amazon and Shell publish results. Friday (July 31): Greater Manchester Mayoral election results; Donald Trump hosts Cabinet meeting at Camp David; 200m and 800m finals …