2025 has been tough for many media companies but there has still been plenty of innovation and investment in new projects going on.
Press Gazette thought these bright spots were worth celebrating.
We asked publishers in the UK and US to shout about one project, either editorial or commercial, that worked well for them this year.
The responses were broad, demonstrating the diversity of approaches being taken to thrive in 2025 – although there were a few recurring themes.
Scroll down or click through to see the full responses from each of our participants:
- Associated Press – AP Intelligence
- Bloomberg – Bloomberg Weekend
- Business Insider – ’80 over 80′ series
- Daily Mail – 360-degree publishing strategy
- DMG New & Creator Media – Eliza partnership with British Airways
- Dow Jones Factiva – Generative AI content licensing
- Financial Times – FT Professional AI channel licence
- Forbes – Forbes Vetted
- GB News – Friends of GB News
- Immediate – Good Food kitchen
- Metro – Formula For Change campaign
- Newsweek – Newsmakers series and video growth
- New Scientist – New formats
- Politico – Covering Donald Trump’s second term
- Reach – Video shows including All Out Rugby League’s Back Ten
- The Atlantic – Games
- The i Paper – Newsletters
- The Independent – Independent Studio
- The New York Times – Essential subscription strategy
- The Sun – Sun Originals
- The Telegraph – From the Editor newsletter
- The Times and The Sunday Times – Times Live app
Video, subscriptions value, newsletters – and not too much AI
Video was the most consistent theme, being highlighted by leaders at Newsweek, Reach, New Scientist, Immediate, The Independent and The Sun.
The Sun’s director of video Jon Lloyd said the brand made “strategic investment in creating premium, recurring video programming designed to drive deep audience engagement and secure new, high-value revenue streams” and cited examples of what worked across verticals including news, sports and parenting.
Immediate’s chief commercial officer Christina Hawley said the relaunch of the Good Food kitchen, “accelerating the scale and variety of our video output”, meant they had driven new commercial revenues via 25 campaigns.
Reach Studio director Harrie Dumenil said the publisher has launched several video series they would count as “early success stories” but highlighted All Out Rugby League’s Back Ten which quickly started leading the news agenda even though it did not have a legacy brand behind it.
Newsweek’s editor-in-chief Jennifer Cunningham cited the successful launch of signature premium interview series Newsmakers and said video will continue to be a “top priority” in 2026.
Away from video, three news leaders discussed newsletters: The i Paper, Politico and The Telegraph.
Telegraph deputy editor Catherine Bentley-Gouldstone said the brand relaunched its From the Editor newsletter and saw results with audience growth and a hugely improved churn rate. This “prompted a rethink and relaunch of our wider newsletter portfolio”.
Roland Agambar, chief executive of Harmsworth Media, said newsletter growth had “probably had the most impact” at The i Paper this year of which he highlighted “at a time when developing direct relationships with our readers is more important than ever”.
Alex Burns, Politico’s senior executive editor for North America, celebrated the relaunch of the Inside Congress newsletter, concentrating on “serving a clearly defined, high-value readership on Capitol Hill”.
He also spoke more widely about Politico’s approach to covering the second Donald Trump administration, including meeting “the demand for authoritative, up-close reporting that explains how power works in the political world Trump has shaped”.
Other editorial projects celebrated below include Metro’s Formula For Change campaign, which just celebrated a major victory in its mission calling on the UK Government to make baby formula more affordable, and Business Insider’s 80 over 80 series of interviews with older workers, a “largely overlooked demographic”, which became an “audience hit”.
Subscriptions and registrations were also a recurring theme. The Times relaunched its app, boosting subscriber engagement. GB News added the free registration tier Friends of GB News and surpassed 50,000 new sign-ups in a month.
The Atlantic’s chief executive Nicholas Thompson said the launch of puzzles destination The Atlantic Games is helping the brand find new audiences “and helping those users build a relationship with us. Over time, we hope these players will become subscribers.”
New York Times VP of global advertising Tom Armstrong wrote about how concentrating on a strategy of being “essential” to people’s “lives and passions” has “completely transformed our product suite and what we have to offer to advertisers”.
Despite the way AI has dominated the industry narrative this year, it was not mentioned much by our respondents.
Three publishers cited AI licensing deals: Associated Press said AI companies are using AP Intelligence to improve their models, FT Professional spoke about the importance of its AI channel licence with AI-driven analytics firm RavenPack, and Dow Jones talked about how it did its own content licensing for generative AI use in Factiva.
Associated Press – AP Intelligence
Sara Trohanis, head of strategic partnerships
“In November, AP introduced a new offering called AP Intelligence, a notable milestone in the evolution of how we are bringing our fact-based, independent, nonpartisan journalism to the world.
“AP Intelligence leverages AP’s global, firsthand reporting as structured, verified data – making it easy for any industry, any company with data needs to integrate a comprehensive factual understanding of current and historical events into any data stack, user flow or business process, in real time.
“We’re transforming the world’s most trusted source of reporting into the world’s leading source of verified news data. Leading AI models, technology platforms and industry users are working with AP Intelligence to improve their models, deepen their analysis, and build a future on a foundation of facts. This will continue be of paramount importance going forward.”
Bloomberg – Bloomberg Weekend
David Merritt, head of media editorial
“Creating Bloomberg Weekend was one of our biggest bets of recent years, and we just celebrated its first anniversary. Building a brand new Weekend section and taking on some of our most established competitors in this space (naming no names) was somewhat daunting.
“We’re often seen as more of a Monday-to-Friday newsroom, when markets are open and investors need fast news and context. But we figured we could come up with something fresh that served our existing professional audience and spoke to how they live their weekends now, blending work and leisure in new ways – and hopefully hooking in some new readers as we go.
“The first step was to hire an editor to mastermind the new section and we found the ideal person in Katherine Bell, who has made a career of building world-class digital news products. Katherine published the first Weekend package on Bloomberg.com in October 2024, with a mixture of essays, reviews, and dispatches from our bureaus around the world.
“The uniting thread between these formats is a focus on ideas: tackling the questions that our readers obsess over, from technology and economics to culture and geopolitics; helping them make sense of the week that’s past, and setting them up for the week ahead and beyond.
“This ethos of ideas-led journalism with the highest ambition is now fully expressed every weekend with The Mishal Husain show, which debuted in October. Hiring Mishal from the BBC drew a ton of attention in the UK and beyond, and the show (which you can now consume in audio, video, and text formats) is off to a spectacular start. Mishal’s peerless, and fearless, interviewing style is really resonating with our audience, as well as reaching millions of new people each week.
“So has the big bet paid off? The Bloomberg Weekend audience has grown every single month, which tells us that we are building a real habit, and digital subscribers who used to engage less at the weekends are now significantly more active.
“Our subscriber base is growing faster than we ever hoped, and Weekend is already a vital part of the offering. And we’re not done yet: we have ambitious plans to enrich the Weekend experience further with new multi-platform content, and more ways to connect consumers with our journalism. We’re very excited about the year ahead.”
[Read more: Bloomberg launches Weekend product after adding 200,000 new subs in four months]
Business Insider – ’80 over 80′ series
Noah Sheidlower, senior economy reporter
“Older workers long past retirement age are the fastest-growing sector of the US labor market. Over the last eight months, I investigated this largely overlooked demographic to uncover what has driven this growing trend. I spoke to workers who are 80 and older, their loved ones, members of Congress, and experts in the aging and workplace management space. Overall, I conducted more than 300 interviews for our 80 over 80 series.
“My reporting uncovered data revealing the number of workplace fatalities among America’s oldest workers, the number who still hold jobs in dangerous professions, and the growing share of older workers in the overall workforce.
“The series also includes vivid and painstaking reporting on workers such as an 81-year-old woman battling heart failure while working at Home Depot, a 93-year-old woman still looking for jobs, and a 90-year-old man who had no other choice but to return to work at a gas station.
“The series has been cited by competitors, including Bloomberg and the Financial Times, and garnered praise from a senator who said ‘seniors will be really grateful to be able to read’ the series. Many leading gerontologists and thought leaders said the series was ‘magnificent,’ ‘critically important,’ and one of the ‘most impressive efforts’ in recent retirement reporting.
“The series was an audience hit on Business Insider, with the stories consistently generating six-figure pageviews and more than a thousand reader responses. The accompanying documentary surpassed a million views on YouTube in one week.
“Readers said they felt seen for the first time by this series. Some said the articles made them return to work, push back against their colleagues for age-related comments, and better handle their finances.”
Daily Mail – 360-degree publishing strategy
Ben Bailey, global editorial director
“The Daily Mail has put a 360-degree publishing strategy at our core, playing to our strengths to maximise cross platform audiences.
“We have focused on taking our best-in-class content and actively driving users around our ecosystem, moving cohorts through the engagement funnel to enhance our direct traffic.
“Doubling down on its own success, Deep Dive this year experimented with even more immersive experiences across platforms.
[Read more: Mail Online becoming home for in-depth multimedia storytelling with Deep Dive strand]
“Our award-winning design team took readers inside the home of the Idaho killer’s murder victims, going room-by-room as our journalists retraced how Bryan Kohberger stabbed four friends to death.
“Another win was the team’s ‘gamification’ test, allowing readers to ‘choose’ what chapter they read next in a scintillatingly detailed explainer on exactly what would happen if Russia went to war with Britain and the US.
“We have developed our content portfolio around our brilliant sub-brands, from The Crime Desk to Palace Confidential which has now hit 500,000 highly engaged subscribers – to deliver world-class content to new audiences across newsletters, YouTube, podcasts and social video.
“We have just released The Other Mo Farah, a three-part podcast series which coincided with exclusive, agenda-setting articles as well as a YouTube special and bespoke social and on-site video packages.
“Our Charlene: Somebody Knows Something podcast from The Crime Desk is the number true crime podcast in the country. We weren’t surprised when our new true crime newsletter became one of the most engaged in our stable.
[Read more: How crime content is powering Daily Mail’s podcast expansion]
“We are constantly evolving and adapting to reach new audiences, and we are already seeing strong results.
“This 360-degree multi-media approach delivers more for our readers, listeners and viewers who keep putting their time and trust in us every single day.”
DMG New & Creator Media – Eliza partnership with British Airways
Hannah Blake, managing director
“This year Eliza partnered with British Airways to deliver an entertaining and impactful campaign on social to help them promote their Euroflyer product.
“We integrated BA into our fashion and beauty brand Eliza’s viral format ‘Guess Which Outfit is Most Expensive‘ and created them a bespoke series called ‘Destination Dupes‘.
“All content created was then amplified across the Daily Mail and Metro’s sites helping them campaign to achieve over ten million views.
“Post-campaign analysis showed that 88% of viewers had agreed that the campaign made them want to book a flight with BA and over 50% went on to visit BA’s website and social channels.
“A really great partnership that combined integrations into existing social formats, bespoke content and amplification across the Mail Metro Media network. We can’t wait to work more with BA this year!”
[Read more: Mail invests heavily in creating content for Tiktok and Instagram]
Dow Jones Factiva – Generative AI content licensing
Emma O’Brian, general manager
“Over the past year, it has become glaringly obvious that access to trusted, reliable and compliant information is more valuable than ever. Businesses are noting a meaningful difference in LLM output based on the quality of sources the model uses to generate answers. This trend has powerfully reinforced Dow Jones’s stance: licensed, attributable and transparent news content is the foundation of every smart business decision.
“Factiva acknowledged early on that GenAI is a net-new use case for publisher content, and we did not assume that our existing licensing agreements covered it. Our core philosophy is that journalistic IP must be protected, compensated and traceable. By proactively seeking specific consent from each individual source, we eliminate the legal risk associated with unlicensed content, providing our customers with compliance certainty.
“Securing explicit rights for GenAI use across more than 7,500 sources has been a critical initiative all throughout 2025 and will continue to drive the business forward in 2026. This achievement represents an industry-defining scale of copyright-compliant content ready for enterprise use.
“As a publisher ourselves, we act as a trusted steward to our partners, ensuring compensation is directly tied to the consumption of their content by enterprise clients. This GenAI licensing model ensures high-quality journalism is a compensated and sustainable input for the future of enterprise AI.”
[Read more: News Corp adds Google-powered AI summaries to Factiva search results]
Financial Times – FT Professional AI channel licence
James Mann, managing director of FT Professional
“This year, FT Professional signed its first AI channel licence with RavenPack, a leading provider of AI-driven analytics for financial services. The partnership brings together what both organisations do best: the FT’s trusted journalism and RavenPack’s real-time data, advanced search tools and technology for building AI agents.
“Under the agreement, FT journalism – both current and archival content – will be integrated into three of RavenPack’s main products: Analytics, Annotations and bigdata.com. On bigdata.com, users can now access live market data, powerful search and tools to build customised AI agents – all alongside FT journalism.
“For clients with an FT Integrated Portfolio licence, this means they can read reliable, in-depth reporting right next to automated analysis, helping them save time and reduce manual research.
“The early results have been really encouraging. In two pilot tests, RavenPack found that adding FT content made their models stronger, offering a consistent and trustworthy signal when combined with other datasets. It’s a great example of how credible journalism can enhance AI-generated insights.
“This AI channel licence marks an important step in a wider partnership between the FT Group and RavenPack to support the responsible use of AI in journalism. It builds a strong foundation for future projects and reflects our shared commitment to integrity, transparency, and proper attribution. We’re excited to expand this offering to more clients and partners in 2026.”
Forbes – Forbes Vetted
Nina Gould, chief innovation officer
“Forbes Vetted, Forbes’ product review vertical and affiliate commerce arm, has been experimenting with a number of ways to cultivate audience growth and loyalty outside of search traffic this year.
“We saw these efforts pay off over Black Friday and Cyber Week, which was the second biggest affiliate revenue week for Forbes since launching affiliate partnerships in 2018, up 116% year on year from Black Friday 2024.
“While many publishers are doubling down on editorial email newsletters, Forbes Vetted is taking this a step further by leveraging first-party data to target email and push subscribers who have demonstrated that they may be interested in making purchases from specific brands or in certain product categories.
“Targeting email sends is a tactic our marketing team has used with great success for delivering high-intent audiences to advertising clients, but this is the first time we have used CDP-powered targeting for affiliate content. On push we saw an average click rate of 4.2%; e-mail sends saw an average open rate of 47.5% – with some as high as 83% – and an average clickthrough rate of 5.2%. All are well above industry standards and a great signal that we connected readers with the exact content they wanted to see.”
GB News – Friends of GB News
Elysse Jones, interim head of community and growth
“One of the most exciting projects we’ve launched this year is Friends of GB News – our new, free registration tier that brings viewers closer to the centre of everything we do.
“We created Friends to give our audiences and listeners new ways to take part in our shows, shaping the conversations they hear live on air and ensuring voices from every corner of Britain are represented. For the first time viewers can engage directly with our programmes through interactive polls, debate participation, commenting tools and more.
“Friends of GB News is completely free, and anyone with an existing GB News account has been automatically upgraded to enjoy the new features and benefits, including enhanced access across our website and app.
“What makes this project so significant is the shift it represents. GB News has always championed open debate and participation, and Friends brings that ethos directly into the live TV experience. Viewers are no longer just watching the news, they’re shaping it.
“The early response has been incredibly encouraging. Since launching in mid-November, Friends of GB News has attracted more than 50,000 new sign-ups, underlining the strong appetite for deeper audience connection.
“Friends has quickly become the cornerstone to our long-term strategy, and there is much more to come in 2026. In a media landscape where audiences want to feel heard, not lectured to, this is a project worth shouting about. It puts the power back in the hands of the people.”
Immediate – Good Food kitchen
Christina Hawley, chief commercial officer
“At the start of the year we relaunched the completely modernised Good Food kitchen, accelerating the scale and variety of our video output. This ranges from long form videos on YouTube, short-form content for TikTok and Instagram to livestreams on key food calendar moments (like Pancake Day), alongside standard recipe and tutorial videos on our website/app.
“Since launch, we have seen over a thousand videos created and it’s driven new commercial revenues, delivering 25 commercial campaigns. The team has truly smashed it out of the park.”
[Read more: Immediate Media’s Good Food plans video expansion after record revenue 2024]
Metro – Formula For Change campaign
Claie Wilson, deputy editor
“In April this year Metro headed to Downing Street armed with a box of over 100,000 signatures, which called on the Government to make baby formula accessible and affordable for all.
“It was all part of the Formula For Change campaign launched in October 2023 by Metro and the charity Feed, after we discovered how struggling families weren’t being allowed to use loyalty points or gift vouchers to buy formula – which can cost up to £18 a tub – thanks to confusing guidelines and inconsistent rules and advice.
“Our campaign was simple – make the guidelines clearer to retailers and foodbanks, and let parents feed their babies without stigma or financial penalties.
“Thanks to our campaigning, which received support from major supermarkets such as Iceland, as well as parenting forum Mumsnet, several Labour MPs and celebrities such as Katherine Ryan and LadBaby, in February this year the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) recommended that parents should be allowed to use vouchers and loyalty points to buy infant formula. Not only that but the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed that food banks were permitted to supply formula to families in crisis – both a huge win for our campaign.
“Finally, following our visit to No 10, Formula For Change got its biggest victory on 3 December 2025, when the Government finally announced reforms that would provide clear guidance for retailers and allow parents to use loyalty points and vouchers to buy infant formula – clearly a direct result of the campaign’s efforts.
“Not only had Formula For Change achieved what it had set out to do, but in doing so we’ve raised awareness of the formula crisis across the UK, as well as help save parents up to £500 in their babies’ first year.”
Newsweek – Newsmakers series and video growth
Jennifer Cunningham, editor-in-chief
“Newsweek’s growth in video has been a top accomplishment for our brand in 2025. In May we launched our signature premium series Newsmakers which married a magazine cover feature with a highly produced video interview with an A list subject. Spike Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Kate Winslet, Kenny Chesney and Ken Burns all participated in the first season.
“The series has generated almost three million video views to date, with about 34 million impressions.
“In addition our popular video series Unconventional made some news with our host Naveed Jamali becoming the first journalist to film all three legs of America’s nuclear triad. The third instalment filmed on a US Navy ballistic missile submarine generated 5.5 million views alone.
“Video will be a top priority for Newsweek as we move into 2026.”
[Read more: Newsweek editor on making brand ‘more reflective of the modern era’]
New Scientist – New formats
Jonas Hermans, chief operating officer, Harmsworth Media
“We have been on a concerted effort to take more of a start-up approach by embedding experimentation and innovation into our teams. This began with a small team dedicated to experimenting with content formats and multimedia and is now an approach being taken up more widely, which is hugely exciting.
“The new formats we’ve been testing include new social video strands, long-form video explainers on YouTube as well as brilliant new written formats, such as a new neuroscience column which is extremely popular with both subscribers and new audiences alike.
“Initial results are very promising. We have reached one million Instagram followers, are increasing our reach, and we have seen a strong rise in digital subscription acquisitions and engagement.”
Politico – Covering Donald Trump’s second term
Alex Burns, senior executive editor for North America
“The job of covering Donald Trump has changed many times in a decade: I vividly remember covering his announcement speech at Trump Tower in 2015. No one then could have anticipated the course his political career would take.
“What has not changed is the demand for authoritative, up-close reporting that explains how power works in the political world Trump has shaped – and the consequences of big choices made in Trump’s Washington.
“One of Politico’s strengths is that we have not had to change our mission to meet this political moment. In a challenging year for media, we are one of few major publishers to expand our audience. We’ve reached new readers, viewers and listeners eager to understand this turbulent time, while bonding ever closer with longtime Politico readers.
“One particularly successful project this year is the relaunch of our Inside Congress newsletter. At a time when audiences are fragmented and distribution channels are evolving, we doubled down on serving a clearly defined, high-value readership on Capitol Hill.
“Since the relaunch, the number of Capitol Hill subscribers to Inside Congress has grown by approximately 46 percent. That growth reflects not just smart distribution, but a relentless focus on deeply sourced reporting that government officials urgently need.
“That same approach has defined our international journalism. In October, we launched The Politico Poll to bring readers the sharpest insight into major policy struggles across national lines. At the same time, sustained investment in video and live programming has allowed us to meet audiences where they are – and deliver globally consequential news like the Dasha Burns interview with Trump.
“So many nonpartisan newsrooms are fighting for survival. Politico’s strength comes from delivering ironclad facts to an audience that trusts us even in an age of suspicion. Nothing is more important than keeping their trust.”
Reach – Video shows including All Out Rugby League’s Back Ten
Harrie Dumenil, studio director
“This year we launched a few new series that have been early success stories, including the Daily Expresso and All Out Football, but All Out Rugby League’s ‘Back Ten’ show really deserves recognition as a project that’s gone from a standing start (without a legacy brand behind it), to very quickly setting the agenda across Super League and beyond.
“Within just a couple of weeks of launch, news broken on the show was being discussed by the sport’s biggest broadcasters globally. That blend of exclusive news and expert insight, along with top-quality guests, has put us at the forefront of the sport’s media landscape.
“Rugby league knows it cannot compete with football, but fans are every bit as passionate about what they deem ‘the greatest game’.
“We recognised that these fans were hugely under-served and by taking the same creative, high-quality approach we apply to all of our output, the show’s success has demonstrated that audiences will embrace and reward you, however niche the topic might seem to an outsider. Episodes attract hundreds of comments, we’re generating 1.75 million monthly impressions and this highly-engaged audience appeals to advertisers, too.
“This well-loved game deserves better coverage and we’ll be expanding our All Out Rugby League output in 2026, covering every angle of a historic season comprising an expanded Super League and a World Cup down under – whatever happens, Back Ten will be the place to find out all about it.”
The Atlantic – Games
Nicholas Thompson, chief executive
“The Atlantic launched The Atlantic Games this summer – an important new destination for puzzles and play on theatlantic.com and in the app. We released three brand-new daily word games in the new Games hub alongside our existing crossword favourites; they include Bracket City, an immediate hit where you solve clues within clues daily to reveal a single, satisfying fact about this day in history.
“Our games are designed to be delightful, highly playable, and the next word-game obsessions for millions. We see games as adding value to a subscription – full game archives are exclusive to subscribers – and offering the opportunity for discovery among new audiences.
“Games have successfully introduced new readers to The Atlantic: they’re reaching non-subscribers and helping those users build a relationship with us. Over time, we hope these players will become subscribers.”
The i Paper – Newsletters
Roland Agambar, chief executive, Harmsworth Media
“My first instinct is to speak about our amazing social video growth, connecting new audiences to The i Paper’s journalism for the first time.
“But I think our newsletter growth has probably had the most impact. We’ve seen 165% growth in referrals year on year at a time when developing direct relationships with our readers is more important than ever.
“The story of The i Paper is that of a small team delivering an outsized impact and our two-person newsletter team working in collaboration with our subs and journalists is no exception.”
The Independent – Independent Studio
Al Brown, head of content at Independent Studio
“One of our standout successes this year has been the launch and rapid growth of Independent Studio, our content development, production and distribution hub that brings The Independent’s journalism to life across talent-led video, podcasts and newsletters.
“From the outset, the focus was on creating distinctive, talent-led content designed to work seamlessly across social platforms and owned channels — delivering both editorial impact and commercial value.
“We invested early in key senior hires, including Olivia Foster as executive producer and Joe Ingham as head of social distribution, who have been central to shaping the studio’s creative direction, commissioning strategy and audience growth.
“This foundation has enabled us to launch a slate of new shows and products this year that have quickly become audience favourites. These include ACFC (The Adam Clery Football Channel) on YouTube and as a newsletter, which has reached 190,000 subscribers in just eight months, alongside Well Enough (wellness), Good Vibrations (music), Money Smart (finance), On The Ground (current affairs), World of Trouble (current affairs) and Inside Football by Miguel Delaney.
“The Football vertical has been particularly successful. In 2025, The Independent won both Best Writer (Miguel Delaney) and Best Social Media (ACFC) at the Football Supporters Association Awards – underlining how strong reporting, social storytelling and distribution now work together to drive engagement and impact.
“The success of Independent Studio demonstrates the power of putting trusted voices at the centre of our content and designing formats built for where audiences already are. This approach has driven significant growth in reach and engagement across social video platforms, translating into meaningful commercial results. New sponsorship partnerships have been secured, including some of our biggest ever deals at The Independent.
“Together, the launch of Independent Studio and its early performance represent a significant step forward in how The Independent develops, distributes and monetises original content.”
[Read more: Independent’s video and podcast Studio aims to become biggest revenue driver]
The New York Times – Essential subscription strategy
Tom Armstrong, VP of global advertising
“In 2025, The New York Times accelerated its strategy of becoming more valuable to more people by being essential to their lives and passions, through the continued development of a portfolio of brands. The Times’s essential subscription strategy has completely transformed our product suite and what we have to offer to advertisers.
“The Athletic’s mission is to become the sports destination for the next generation and today it is one of the world’s largest sports newsrooms with 450 journalists, covering the Premier League, NBA, NFL, F1, tennis, and global events like the Olympics. The Athletic’s 85 UK journalists, including David Ornstein, have become central to Premier League and transfer-market coverage.
“Through Wordle and hit games such as Connections and Spelling Bee, we’ve established a premium position in a crowded gaming landscape. NYT Games has become a daily ritual for millions. In 2024, our puzzles were played more than 11 billion times. In the UK alone, four million people play NYT Games weekly.
“NYT Cooking transformed an over 22,000-recipe archive dating back to the 1960 and has grown to be the biggest paid recipe site in the world. In 2024, people visited the site and app more than 489 million times and saved recipes 72 million times.
“Our product review site, Wirecutter, helps readers buy what truly matters through rigorous, independent testing. Today, it reviews thousands of products annually, and in 2024 drove over $1bn in commerce.
“Together with our world-leading News product, this portfolio now reaches between 50 to 100 million people globally each week.
“This strategy is proving successful— in The New York Times’s Q3 2025 earnings we announced our digital advertising revenue grew 20% and that we had reached over 12m subscribers, 2m of them are outside the US and a third come from Europe.”
[Read more: New York Times adds family deals in ‘biggest change’ to subscriptions structure in years]
The Sun – Sun Originals
Jon Lloyd, director of video
“In 2025 we launched Sun Originals, with the goal of creating premium-quality, global, episodic video formats and franchises as part of our strategic vision to put video at the heart of our 360 content model.
“We launched with a focus on key areas where The Sun already has massive editorial authority and significant audience reach, such as Sport and Fabulous – our female lifestyle brand. By creating bold, market-leading shows it’s allowed us to build highly engaged communities around these established content pillars, using both our own in-house expertise as hosts, as well as working with some of the biggest social talent and influencers who front some of our formats.
“The success of this premium quality content model is clear to see, with massively increased audience engagement. For example our long-running Sports formats like Tactics Exposed and huge event programming like No Gloves Lost have delivered a 200% increase in AVD and a big rise in returning viewers. Both shows have secured long-term, returning sponsors.
“We’ve also reached – and engaged – brand new audiences. Our parenting show No Parental Guidance has built a bespoke community not just on YouTube but also across socials. In fact it’s grown so quickly, we now produce additional parenting content under that brand umbrella. And as all our Originals content is uniquely built for brand integration it allows us to secure bespoke sponsorship – these Parenting shows have attracted amazing brand partners who want to engage with the communities we’re building.
“So Sun Originals has opened new partnership opportunities as well as helping to further diversify our revenue streams – with content performing well on third-party platforms and on our owned platforms. It also adds to our ever-growing reach as The Sun became the largest UK newspaper brand on YouTube, now surpassing seven million subscribers.
“But the premium quality content model isn’t just for our Entertainment pillars – we’ve applied it to News as well, seeing significant success with our new Royal channel and the documentaries we produce for it; And on our News platforms we’ve launched long-form weekly analysis series like Battle Plans Exposed which are quickly becoming appointment to view series and improving our engagement metrics. Perhaps the best example of this model’s versatility though is our award-winning investigation, Madeleine McCann: The Unseen Evidence. Originally commissioned for our YouTube channel, the documentary was licensed and premiered on Channel 4 in an industry-first licensing deal, and performing well above the slot’s average.
“So Sun Originals represents a strategic investment in creating premium, recurring video programming designed to drive deep audience engagement and secure new, high-value revenue streams, and deliver a newsroom future-proofed against volatile referral traffic. But this is just the beginning… there’s a lot more planned for 2026.”
[Read more: How The Sun became biggest UK newspaper on Youtube with 6 million subscribers]
The Telegraph – From the Editor newsletter
Catherine Bentley-Gouldstone, deputy editor
“The rise of AI in search has made it increasingly important for publishers to own and refine their off-platform presence. With this in mind, From the Editor was born. We wanted to build a deeper, more direct relationship with our subscribers by showing them, every day, the very best of the Telegraph. At the same time, we wanted to offer registered readers a daily taste of our journalism, helping to demonstrate the value of a subscription.
“From the Editor is created in a similar vein to a mini-newspaper, with a carefully-balanced mix of headlines, comment, analysis and features delivered in morning, evening and international editions. Once twice-weekly, its daily relaunch was led by Bill Gardner, head of national news, and it is now a core part of our operation.
“The morning newsletter is reviewed throughout the night and rewritten until the very minute it is sent to inboxes. From that flows the international edition at lunchtime, and the PM edition in early evening.
“The results have been instant: it has an audience of over two million, and acquisitions have grown 77%. These acquisitions are demonstrably higher quality, with the one-month churn rate declining by 64% year on year.
“The format and design allows our journalists to be more analytical and get ‘inside the story’. Readers email in to debate the issues of the day and the world at large, giving the newsletter a genuine sense of conversation. We try to keep a little fun with Matt cartoons, caption competitions, reader letters and quizzes.
“From the Editor’s success has prompted a rethink and relaunch of our wider newsletter portfolio, sharpening our offer to readers and strengthening habitual engagement and subscriptions across the business.”
The Times and The Sunday Times – Times Live app
Edward Roussel, head of digital
“In April 2025, The Times and The Sunday Times launched the new Times Live app. The project was a major step forward in terms of defining our digital future and the outcome of two years of work to rethink mobile journalism.
“Our mission was clear: help readers effortlessly find more of the journalism they value. More than 1,000 subscribers took part in shaping the redesign, which began with a deep audit of the 1,250 stories published each week and how they could be better organised for discovery and depth.
“At the heart of the new experience is Top Stories, a re-engineered homepage curating the day’s major news alongside standout pieces from across the newsroom. Coverage across the app is now arranged into eight primary sections: UK, World, Comment, Money, Business, Sport, Life & Style and Culture, supported by a prominent and new « Find » feature that encourages deeper exploration.
“Two new sections, Life & Style and Culture, provide an antidote to the 24/7 news cycle. Puzzles, too, are an additional element of entertainment, including a seven-day catch-up window for missed games and a new entry-level game, Quizle.
“For readers nostalgic for print, we created a magazines section housing five publications – Times Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Style, Culture and Luxx – along with a Print edition tab that mirrors that day’s papers page-by-page, complete with a 30-day archive.
“The impact of these changes was immediate. The Times Live app now has the highest level of engagement among UK news publishers, with readers spending nine hours and 23 minutes per month on the app, according to Ipsos data. Article reads have risen 6%, topic-in-page readership has surged from 2% to 17%, and the number of puzzles played is up 18%.
“The project represents a new model of cross-business collaboration – editorial, commercial, data analytics, design and technology – and a decisive step towards a more dynamic digital future for The Times and The Sunday Times.”
[Read more: The Times: From loss-making broadsheet to profit on a tiny screen]
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