Reach plc — BrandWiki

Reach plc

Overview

Reach plc

type	Public limited company
traded as	lse: RCH
key people	Nicholas Prettejohn (Chairman) Piers North (CEO)
industry	Publishing
products	National and regional newspapers, magazines (see list of titles)
revenue	£518.4 million (2025)‡R1R‡
operating income	£104.7 million (2025)‡R1R‡
net income	£(132.3) million (2025)‡R1R‡
foundation	1903
location	One Canada Square London, England, UK‡R2R‡
homepage	reachplc.com

Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newsbrand, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK and Ireland's largest commercial news groups, both in online audience and titles, with over 120 print and online brands,[3] including nationals Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, local titles including the Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, BirminghamLive, Nottingham Post and BelfastLive, as well as WalesOnline, OK! magazine, and the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail. Reach plc's headquarters are at One Canada Square in London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

History

The Daily Mirror was launched by Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, "for gentlewomen" in 1903.[4] The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange

Phone hacking

In January 2011, former MP Paul Marsden announced that he was considering taking legal action against Trinity Mirror, over alleged phone hacking.[27] On 24 September 2014, Trinity Mirror admitted that some of its journalists had been involved in phone hacking.[28][29] It admitted liability and agreed to pay compensation to four people who had sued for the alleged hacking of voicemails (entertainer Shane Richie, soap actresses Shobna Gulati and Lucy Benjamin and BBC creative director Alan Yentob). The four also received an apology. Trinity Mirror also announced that it had earlier settled six other phone hacking claims in relation to former England football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, footballer Garry Flitcroft, actor Christopher Eccleston, showbusiness agent Phil Dale, Richie's wife Christine Roche and Abbie Gibson, a former nanny of David and Victoria Beckham. As of September 2014, a further 19 claims were registered at the High Court and another 10 claimants had indicated they would bring proceedings against Trinity Mirror.[30] Other reports claimed that the number of victims could be much higher, with Evan Harris, associate director of the pressure group Hacked Off describing the revelations as: "… just the tip of a very big iceberg".[31] On 6 November 2014, Graham Johnson, pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates' Court.[32]

On 13 February 2015, Trinity Mirror published a public apology to "all its victims of phone hacking" on page two of the Daily Mirror.[33] It also set aside funds to cover the cost of settling phone hacking compensation payments.[34] The same apology was printed in the following editions of the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror.[34]

A hearing at the High Court in London heard on 3 March 2015 that one Mirror group journalist had hacked the phones of some 100 celebrities every day and that 109 stories had been published about just seven claimants.[35] On 21 May 2015, damages totalling nearly £1.25m were awarded to eight people as the result of phone hacking by Mirror Group journalists, including actress Sadie Frost (£260,000) and ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne (£188,250). Other damages recipients included soap opera actors Shane Richie (£155,000), Shobna Gulati (£117,500) and Lucy Benjamin (real name Lucy Taggart, £157,250), as well as BBC creative director Alan Yentob (£85,000), TV producer Robert Ashworth (former husband of Coronation Street actress Tracy Shaw, £201,250) and flight attendant Lauren Alcorn (former girlfriend of footballer Rio Ferdinand, £72,500).[36] The Mirror Group said it would consider whether to seek permission to appeal against the size of the damages, but increased the money allocated to deal with phone hacking claims from £12 million to £28 million.[36]

On 15 December 2023, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex was awarded £140,600 by the High Court in damages against Mirror Group Newspapers after 15 out of 33 sample articles in his claim against MGN were ruled as being the product of phone hacking or other unlawful information gathering.[37][38][39]

Operations

Newspapers

Reach plc's printing division, Reach Printing Services,[40] is located at three press sites throughout the UK, printing and distributing thirty-six major newspapers for the UK, including the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, the Sunday People, the Daily Record and Edinburgh Live (in Scotland),[41] and other contract titles including titles for the Guardian Media Group.[42] Reach plc also owns a number of local titles in Northern England and in Surrey and Berkshire, after acquiring a number of titles from the Guardian Media Group in 2010.[15]

Digital

In 2013, Trinity Mirror launched the content websites UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d on an experimental basis. UsVsTh3m was a website similar to BuzzFeed focused on quizzes and Flash games, edited by B3ta founder Rob Manuel and running the Tumblr platform. Ampp3d focused on data journalism[43][44] and used the WordPress platform. Both websites were closed down in 2015.[45]

In 2024, Reach launched a Studio team, a division incorporating editorial and commercial multimedia content to audiences and advertising partners.[46]

In early 2025, further investment by Reach in video studios and staff saw new state-of-the-art spaces built in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle.[47]

In 2025, Reach launched a variety of new standalone digital brands, such as All Out Gaming, All Out Rugby League and All Out Football.[48]

In September 2025, the Daily Express launched a new daily YouTube chat show produced by Reach Studio called the Daily Expresso, taking a look at the biggest stories the news brand’s reporters are working on each day with a host of leading political guests.[49]

In March 2025, Reach announced that its social media accounts across brands and channels hit the milestone of 100 million followers.[50]

In more recent years, they have expanded into direct sales – first with the OK! Beauty Box cosmetic product subscription service, which launched in 2020 and shipped its 500,000th package in June 2024 and in 2024, with its own ecommerce site Yimbly, which sells general goods and homewares.[51]

In 2021, Reach announced the appointment of a newly created Online Safety Editor role, a first in the industry, working with all colleagues at Reach to support through incidents of online abuse and harassment, while also leading efforts to prevent this further.[52]

In 2019, Reach launched Mantis, a brand safety platform which uses AI and machine learning to check whether content is appropriate for advertising and reducing unnecessary blacklisting, at a time when brand safety has been an increasing concern for the advertising industry. Over time, Mantis developed leveraging AI-driven contextual intelligence to accurately and efficiently gauge brand safety through semantic understanding of text and media content.[53]

In July 2025, North revealed new strategic priorities for Reach, with an emphasis on video and audio content.[54]

North also announced that in order to diversify revenues, the company would be launching a digital subscription strategy in addition to its ad-funded business model.[55]

In September 2025, Reach hired its first ever Head of Digital Subscriptions to oversee this new project.[56]

Reach plc

History

Phone hacking

Operations

Newspapers

Digital

External links

References