Good afternoon from the team at Press Gazette on Tuesday, 28 July.

🏘️ UK local publisher Nub News launched in 2018 and soon followed the age-old playbook of expansion, reaching 42 towns at its peak in 2024.

But crucially it hadn’t yet nailed what its magic formula was. It stripped back, closing 17 locations in 18 months, and founder Karl Hancock now told us they have learned what the key ingredients for a Nub News town are - with Crewe leading the way.

This change in strategy, along with a new approach to how advertising is delivered, means Nub News is expecting to make its first profit this year. It may be small, but it’s a really positive indicator of the business finally nailing its USP.

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🫨 Over the past week Press Gazette has reported on new research from the AOP revealing the fact that Google search traffic for publishers could halve by the end of 2027, the low clickthrough rate to publisher sources from AI answers, and that AI answers are only as trusted as the newsbrands they cite but that high trust can increase the frequency of “stop here” behaviours.

Now, new digital revenue figures appear to indicate the “first tremors in an earthquake” hitting the industry as a result of these shifts.

Among a snapshot of 13 UK publishers total digital revenue dropped by 4.55% in Q1 - a wake-up call after four consecutive quarters of growth.

Compared to last year, those publishers are more likely to prioritise advertising (particularly premium direct deals), cost reductions and acquisitions.

Even subscriptions and video revenues were pretty flat.

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🕰️ Our latest UK newsbrand audience and engagement data from Ipsos iris shows a fairly even split between those who are growing time spent with their content (both on a monthly and yearly basis) and those seeing a decline.

Four of the ten for biggest month-on-month minutes growth were owned by Reach, possibly indicating a shift already happening towards original content as the publisher recognises optimising for volume is no longer its best bet for digital growth.

Three of those four - Yorkshire Live, Daily Star and Daily Express - are among the 18 Reach digital subscription launches that have rolled out since November.

It’s a slightly less optimistic picture looking at year-on-year audience growth, with just 13 out of 50 newsbrands seeing growth. But it’s what you do with that audience that counts nowadays, rather than sheer scale.

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🤏 News In Brief

Buzzfeed is reportedly cutting roughly a third of its remaining staff - around 180 people - following its takeover by businessman and film producer Byron Allen. (Press Gazette)