Byline Times sees value in print — and the US
The Media Leader Interview
Co-founders Stephen Colegrave and Peter Jukes still believe in the advantages of print. The pair discuss a new culture edition under consideration and taking on the US market.
“Obviously, print in general is declining. But there is still opportunity.”
Peter Jukes, co-founder and executive editor of Byline Times, argues in favour of the physical paper as a way to build trust and direct engagement with audiences — even in 2024.
“There’s something about the determinacy of a paper compared to the impermanence of online,” says Jukes, implying the medium of print itself helps to improve trust amid a “catastrophic” decline of it in media.
Indeed, unlike newspapers such as the Evening Standard, which this summer announced it was moving from a daily to a weekly print edition, Byline Times has expanded its print output in the past year by launching on newsstands in retail shops and it is considering the creation of a new print product covering culture.
Jukes speaks to The Media Leader alongside his Byline Times co-founder Stephen Colegrave from the stylish and bustling lobby of their office building in Southwark. The pair originally developed the idea for Byline Times, Colegrave explains, after Jukes realised that he could raise funds from patrons to live-tweet the Leveson Inquiry proceedings in 2012.
Through crowdfunding tool Indiegogo, Jukes raised more than £14,500 from over 550 individual backers. In 2019, the duo launched Byline Times with a monthly print edition and a free-to-access website.
Before founding Byline Times, Colegrave spent decades in marketing and communications roles at companies including Saatchi & Saatchi, and was immersed in the punk scene. While Jukes also does not consider himself a classical journalist — his career background includes experiences in TV, radio, theatre and non-fiction writing — the two’s passion for a cut-the-bullshit news product is clear.
“We’re not from journalism,” says Colegrave. “Had we been journalists, we might not have started [Byline Times].”
Evening Standard succumbs to commuting changes and goes weekly
Print expansion at a time of market contraction
“When the world zigs, zag” is not just an iconic Bartle Bogle Hegarty tagline for Levi’s, but also apparently a mantra for Byline Times, which last year announced an expansion of its print edition at a time when print is, as Jukes admits, in significant decline.
While Byline Times has always produced a print edition for subscribers, it has been available for one-off purchase at most retailers across the UK since last autumn.
Despite increased costs and anxieties that going into retail could cannibalise its own subscription model, the result has been a success — Colegrave reports that Byline Times has in fact seen an uptick in subscriptions and now counts nearly 40,000 paid subscribers with a total print circulation of around 60,000. This is up from 29,000 paying subscribers reported by Press Gazette last summer and 50,000 referenced in the Byline Shop in March.
“We wanted to go after a much larger audience, which is why we went retail,” Colegrave explains, adding that their extant subscribers are highly engaged. When pushed on the sustainability of print circulation growth in a declining market, he points to the relative success of Private Eye, which still maintains a print circulation above 230,000, as a “marker” that shows there is still demand for print editions.
The dangers of false equivalence in journalism during a US election year
Unlike many other magazines, which also release content included in physical editions as articles online before and after they appear in print, three-quarters of the material in Byline Times‘ print editions is wholly unique to print.
“A lot of [our coverage] is behind the paywall of print,” says Jukes. He believes there is “a slightly vinyl thing going on” with the monthly print title, suggesting print is en vogue with younger audiences as it offers a tactile user experience and a collectible piece of history.
Still, from a commercial perspective, the retail print edition is seen as a loss leader and an exercise in mass marketing to not only improve brand awareness but also trust as a premium news brand.
“We didn’t go into retail to make money. It was the Coca-Cola strategy,” Jukes explains, referring to Coke’s tactic of paying to ensure its drinks are displayed prominently at outlets such as retailers, cinemas and vending machines.
Courting advertisers
With Byline‘s circulation expanding, the pair are increasingly interested in courting advertisers to improve the profitability of print. Most revenue Byline Times takes in is earned directly from subscribers and the publisher has a history of crowdsourcing additional funding when necessary.
The co-founders tell The Media Leader that they are exploring the potential launch of a culture-focused monthly print title. This would in effect double the Byline Times‘ monthly print footprint.
While the venture would not be solely commercially driven, a culture magazine could be more appealing to advertisers given the content would likely be less political.
Colegrave and Jukes express a long-held dislike of display advertising, finding it a net negative on the digital user experience, and have been reluctant to bring significant ad inventory to the digital edition. However, they praise ad placements in print as contributing to the reading experience by breaking up text and adding visual flair.
Adtech startup Into-It wants to replace banner ads with something better
“We never bothered with advertisers until we had a large enough circulation,” says Colegrave. “We aren’t dependent on an advertising model. Advertising, for us, is the cream.”
That means they can have a bit of fun haggling with advertisers. The duo, who are open in their criticism of other national news outlets, chuckle as they share how they used to cheekily offer advertisers a 50% discount with Byline Times if they also agreed to pull advertising from the Daily Mail.
Colegrave declines to go into detail about the publisher’s finances, but reveals annual turnover is about £1.2m. He adds that profits are currently reinvested into the business as Byline Times is in a “growth stage”. According to publicly available filings on Companies House, the majority stake in the company is controlled by JTC Trustees.
There are only 12 permanent staff members at Byline Times, although it keeps around 30 writers on a monthly retainer and has a pool of over 500 additional freelancers who can be called upon.
Across the pond
There are other potential expansion plans in the works for the five-year-old periodical.
“We’re looking to potentially launch in the US,” confirms Colegrave.
Roughly 8% of Byline Times‘ subscribers are already American and the team has developed a Substack newsletter aimed at attracting a larger consumer base there with US-relevant material.
The duo argue that there’s an opportunity to improve brand awareness in the US ahead of November’s presidential election and believe there is a gap in the market, given periodicals such as Newsweek and Time have suffered from falling circulation and lower prestige in the digital era.
The Media Leader understands that New York University associate professor of journalism Jay Rosen, a known advocate of participatory journalism, is consulting on Byline Times‘ US launch. Early plans include developing an “alpha test” for the market by making print editions of Byline Times available in Barnes & Noble stores, although such a deal is not yet confirmed.
Speaking of the difference between the markets, Jukes calls the US a “stable oligopoly”, while the UK is an “unstable monarchy”. American press, he explains, is dominated by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, Jukes argues that the UK tends to maintain one core influential paper in a given moment, although that changes depending on political leadership at the time, among other factors.
But Byline Times, Colegrave and Jukes argue, is distinct from much of the competition. “We’re not going to chase the news cycle,” says Jukes, adding that “there’s an underpinning of fact and a plurality of analysis of those facts” in Byline Times‘ coverage.
That coverage includes a multimedia presence. Byline TV has 114,000 subscribers on YouTube and the outlet is also home to three podcasts, but the pair insist on brand cohesiveness: “Everything works across each other.”
As Colegrave adds: “Paper is the engine of the whole thing.”
Betsy Reed wants investigative journalism to build The Guardian’s US brand