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Reach plc will launch a dedicated U.S. operation in 2023, with a particular focus on growing its American audience for the Mirror, Express and a new online iteration of the Irish Star.
Reach plc, Britain’s largest national and regional news publisher, has announced it will open a New York office next year in a bid to grow its U.S. audience.
Recruitment has already begun across reporting, social media, multimedia and editor roles, for jobs to start in the new year. Current Reach staff have also been invited to apply for U.S. roles and overseas secondments, whilst existing U.S.-based journalists will start to be hired in the coming months.
The expansion will be led by Group Editor-in-Chief Lloyd Embley and Chief Digital Publisher David Higgerson with the primary goal of expanding U.S. audiences for its Mirror and Express titles.
While U.S. expansion makes commercial sense for the Mirror and Express, Reach’s most significant move is the launch of IrishStar.com which will cater to the sizeable Irish American population, with individual correspondents covering New York City, Boston and Pennsylvania. Currently, the title is a print-only edition in Ireland.
Reach will also bolster its 24-7 sports coverage to more closely serve U.S.-based soccer fans, especially for the Manchester Evening News, FootballLondon and Liverpool.com.
The experience and data we’ve gathered over recent years, both on our existing national titles and from launching dozens of newsbrands from scratch, will ensure we are in a strong position to take advantage of this opportunity to reach millions more readers every day.
Lloyd Embley, Group Editor-in-Chief, Reach Plc
Reach isn’t the first news publisher to scale up its overseas operations to attract new audiences. One of France’s leading newspapers, Le Monde, earlier this year launched its first English-language digital edition with articles translated in part by artificial intelligence. It followed the success of its African edition, Le Monde Afrique, which launched in 2015.
Le Monde said at the time its English-language content is part of its goal to double its subscriber base to one million by 2025, adding, “The challenge is an ambitious one: to carve out a place for Le Monde in an English-speaking world.”
