Most local newspapers in the UK are owned by a small handful of companies – and this concentration has just got worse. On March 18, Newsquest announced it was buying out Archant, and will be taking over its 74 local news titles.
In light of these developments, MRC have updated the ownership figures from our 2021 report ‘Who owns the UK media?’ Headline findings are:
- Newsquest now controls almost a third (30.3%) of the UK’s entire local and regional newspaper market.
- Four-fifths of the UK’s local and regional newspaper market is controlled by just five companies.
- The three largest companies – Newsquest, Reach and National World – jointly control almost 70% of all local newspaper circulation. This is a 6.5% increase in market concentration since 2021
- Newsquest, Reach and National World each holds a greater share of local titles than the smallest 52 local publishers combined
| Publisher | Titles | Share | Cumulative share |
| Newsquest PLC | 306 | 29.9% | 29.9% |
| Reach Plc | 211 | 20.6% | 50.5% |
| National World |
183 | 17.9% | 68.4% |
| Tindle Newspapers Ltd | 79 | 7.7% | 76.1% |
| Iliffe Media | 71 | 6.9% | 83.1% |
| Remaining 52 publishers | 173 | 16.9% | 100.0% |
| 1023 | 100% |
We have been here many times before. This level of ownership concentration not only increases the unaccountable power of media proprietors and shareholders, it also consistently leads to less investment in the public interest local journalism we all need. Consolidations over the past two decades have led to titles closing, journalists being laid off, and the hollowing out of the local outlets that remain – a trend which is now highly likely to play out in Archant’s titles. While the dominant commercial companies have blamed these cost-cutting measures on the loss of advertising income as it has moved online, they have continued to pay out significant shareholder profits and executive salaries. Reach’s top execs were paid over £6 million in 2021, while the company received significant public subsidies.
The DCMS select committee is currently calling for evidence on the sustainability of local journalism. It is imperative they look to new solutions for supporting high quality, accountable and independent local news (such as those proposed in our Manifesto for a People’s Media) rather throwing money at the companies whose actions have exacerbated the current crisis.
The DCMS select committee call for evidence closes at 6 PM on March 31 2022.
I have worked for Newsquest twice. I worked at The Herald in Glasgow just before they took over. We had gone from having a relatively caring, but incompetent owner to being constantly harangued to do everything cheaper and with fewer people by these corporate vultures. Within 18 months I left in what was their third round of redundancies.
The second time was about eight years later as a freelancer, but the staff- and cost-cutting had left this once proud newspaper a withered shadow of its former self.
Their whole stable has a ‘digital first’ policy where website hits count for more than readers. Puerile stories widely copied and pasted from other inane titles are the order of the day despite management denials that they are pushing clickbait. Newsquest want similar web figures to the Gruaniad and Times but they won’t spend the money to make their websites user friendly and decent looking. Salaries are dreadful apart from those overseeing this destruction, who are also responsible for countless emails to staff urging them to do better.
I agree with your analysis. We have Newsquest here in Clacton-on-Sea “Clacton Gazette” it’s called. The amount of news you could fit on 3 pages, the rest is adverts. I noticed that it had an advert for “My Pillow Guy”, if you didn’t know, and most wont, this guy is under all sorts of investigations’ in the US and should not be advertising in our local newspapers. Obviously he is a Rightwing Q conspirator, back in US, so what is he doing here? Oh I nearly forgot, our National and Local “Newspapers” are owned by Rightwing Putin sympathizers. It’s about time this was called out to our Political naive Public who just seem to lap up the propaganda printed and spoken here in UK.