Jim Mullen steps down as Reach CEO
Reach CEO Jim Mullen has stepped down and is leaving the publisher’s board with immediate effect.
Piers North, currently chief revenue officer, has been appointed to succeed Mullen.
Replacing North as chief revenue officer on an interim basis is Emma Callaghan, the current executive director of advertising and strategy.
It is understood that the decision for Mullen to step down was mutual; Mullen is leaving to become group CEO of commercial horse-racing organisation The Jockey Club — a role he will begin in June.
“I want to thank everyone at Reach for their hard work over these past nearly six years,” Mullen said in a statement. “Together, we have put the business in a stronger position, resolving important historical issues and making real progress on our digital growth, while continuing to deliver impactful journalism.”
He added: “I will continue to champion the importance of free-to-access news and the Daily Record football coverage from the sidelines, and I wish everyone the best.”
North joined Reach in 2014 as a strategy director and named chief revenue officer in 2020. Before Reach, he worked first as a digital journalist before joining the commercial team at Yahoo, where he spent nearly a decade.
In an email circulated to staff on Monday morning and viewed by The Media Leader, North thanked Mullen for his work and stated his appreciation to staff for making “strong progress in the delivery of our strategy and transition to a digitally led business”.
“It’s an honour and a privilege to be leading this organisation as we continue that journey,” he wrote. “It’s certainly not going to be a walk in the park but, if we get it right, which we’ve shown we can, the opportunity is massive.”
Of his own replacement, North added that Callaghan is “perfectly placed to lead the commercial function”.
In a comment to The Media Leader, Callaghan called it a “privilege to lead this talented commercial team”, adding that she is “fuelled every day by getting to see up close how our commercial efforts sustain the journalism that means so much to communities”.
“In the meantime, the sun is finally shining, we have the Grand National and Easter in April, and then we’re truly into BBQ season and the build-up to the Women’s Euros,” she said. “The opportunity is massive.”
Analysis: CEO exits amid ‘existential battle for survival’
North takes over the UK’s largest publisher amid a tumultuous transition period as it pushes its titles to embrace digital growth.
Total revenue at Reach fell 5.3% last year to £538.6m, according to the company’s 2024 earnings report. The drop was led by a 7.3% decline in print revenue, which failed to be offset by 2.1% growth in digital revenue.
Notably, print ad revenue fell 14.6%, although the publisher referred to this as a “solid performance” given a 17% decline in print volumes.
However, overall profits jumped 6% to £102.3m, thanks in part to cost-cutting efforts, originally undertaken in 2023.
It is uncertain whether Reach’s free ad-supported business model will be sustainable for all of its titles as they transition to digital businesses. According to Mullen, Reach’s print titles are expected to become loss-making in six to eight years, but changes to Facebook and Google’s algorithms have severely kneecapped its referral traffic in recent years.
One further sticking point has been that between 40% and 50% of Reach’s articles on several popular subjects have been wrongly blocked from receiving advertising by advertisers’ overly blunt keyword blocklists.
As Mullen described in a speech at The Stationers’ Company’s Autumn Livery Dinner in September 2024, ad-supported news outlets are currently in an “existential battle for survival” against Big Tech.
“If platforms are regulated to pay the providers for the content they so freely offer, if they are regulated so that the advertising market is not so heavily distorted in their favour and that reliable trustworthy news is prioritised in their feeds — then there is hope,” Mullen said.
For Reach’s part, the strategy appears to be to compensate for the loss in referral traffic — and, with it, potential ad revenue — by increasing output. In the autumn, Reach newsrooms gave reporters targets to write up to eight articles per day.
Part of the effort appears to be using an in-house AI tool, dubbed Guten, to help write articles. In 2024, Guten was used to aid in the creation of articles that received a combined total of 1.8bn page views.
In an internal email first reported by Press Gazette, Reach editorial director Paul Rowland stated that, although page views “may not be a perfect metric”, they are “the best thing we’ve got right now” to sell advertising.
Diversifying streams
However, Reach is also actively seeking new revenue streams, including through affiliate revenue, social video and ecommerce, with North well-placed, as the former commercial chief, to help deliver on business strategy.
In March 2024, the publisher launched its Studio team, a joint editorial and commercial initiative led by Mark Field that produces and serves multimedia content for consumers and advertising partners.
Field commented last year: “With over 120 content specialists in the virtual ‘room’, ideas have been flowing since day one, from developing existing podcasts to producing new video shows and formats to creating content that our huge social audiences will love.”
Reach CEO: Sun and Mail are our allies in ‘battle for survival’
