--- title: London rising description: A study tour reveals the city’s media are meeting challenges with real energy --- [![logo (2)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/hubfs/Assets%20HBM%20Theme/Images/logo%20(2).svg)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/) [![logo (3)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/hubfs/Assets%20HBM%20Theme/Images/logo%20(3).svg)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/) - [Home](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/en-gb/) - [Advisory](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/advisory) - [121 Consulting](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/121-consulting) - [Content Review](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/contentreview) - [Testimonials](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/testimonial) - [Contact](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/contact-us) # London rising [Alan Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/author/alan-hunter) 23 October 2026 8 min read **A study tour reveals the city’s media are meeting challenges with real energy** I always enjoy showing people around London, my home city. Not least because at heart I feel more a Londoner than English. This week I had the pleasure of being a tour guide with Michael Brunt, my business partner, as we hosted WAN-IFRA’s Revenue Strategy Study Tour of UK publishers in advance of its Digital Media Europe conference. We visited Goalhanger, The Economist, the Daily Mail, Reuters, Reach, Caliber, The Observer, The Guardian and Ozone, the ad network. I used to find study tours incredibly useful when I worked for a publisher. I’d be endlessly scribbling down ideas to take back to the newsroom and implement asap. Now, as a media adviser, I can take a more general overview and see the patterns. This week, despite the near-ceaseless rain that greeted us every time we stepped outside, the mood was sunny. Perhaps an apt metaphor for what we found. I will respect the confidentiality of those who so generously hosted us but much of what they told us has been announced publicly anyway. Here are some of the key themes: Be quick, be nimble The British news establishment could never be accused of being swift to act, except in pursuit of a story. I guess it’s because on such a small island every newspaper could have national scale. This allowed a lot of them to thrive, even in a competitive environment. And when your business is thriving, why change? That’s not the case any more and we talked to businesses who are moving very quickly indeed. Reach is launching a paywall every 12 and a half days as it rolls out subscriptions across its titles. The Mail combined its titles – the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline – into a single brand and went subscription-first in the blink of an eye. The Observer launched the title’s first ever digital products in a matter of months. Everywhere we went there was energy and a palpable sense of urgency. Occasionally there may be missteps – we heard of one paywall change that inadvertently reset every customer’s meter – but this activity and the willingness to change direction in short order bodes well for the challenges ahead. (Almost) everyone agrees you have to pay for news When I worked at The Times and we launched a paywall in 2010, everyone thought we were mad. “Nobody will pay for news,” they said. But they did and now every single national newspaper has some form of paid content, with most putting it at the very centre of their revenue strategy. The News Movement and Goalhanger are still predominantly free to air but it’s still remarkable to me that we have ended up here. The Mail and Reach are both pushing subscriptions?!? You’d never have believed that would happen even three years ago. I think it’s a good thing too, not least because it assigns a value to content. I suspect the forthcoming negotiations with AI firms would be a lot more difficult if our journalism was being given away for nothing. “Relationship” was the key word Everywhere we went people talked about building relationships with their users. No longer are they passive “readers” who take what they are given, but instead there is a desire to draw people closer to the brand. Goalhanger has its 250,000 members (I am one), who get early releases of podcasts, newsletters and early access to events; The Observer has its Culture Club, built to buttress its arts coverage heritage. Everyone is doing IRL events to a greater or lesser extent. At every stop it was clear that the idea of news as a transactional relationship is shifting to being a much closer one that is very much two-way. Personality is a product “Creator” must be one of the words of 2026, but despite having heard it mentioned at every event I’ve been to this year, I was surprised at the extent of publishers’ adoption of this ethos. It always felt like a moment when the famously byline-free Economist leaned into the trend with its Insider video series, led by editor Zanny Minton Beddoes’s interviews with the likes of Elon Musk. Now that is being expanded and productised with its Play offering which will arrive next year. I could tell that some of our delegates were astonished at the freedom and power that Goalhanger gives its creator-hosts – as a result, none of them has ever left – but this feels like a replicable model for a particular type of media company around the world. How the industry manages the shift from institutions to individuals will be crucial to its future success or otherwise. Format follows the audience “Eyes optional” was a new one on me, but that’s how Goalhanger describes its format priorities. Basically, it videos every show it makes but accepts that some people just want to listen. And, as the Economist is also now doing with Play, it makes sure that the experience is of the right quality however you choose to consume it. Some 15 years ago I remember customers saying: “You find the news; I’ll choose where I read it.” They were talking about websites, apps and print. Now that has shifted and everyone has a different preferred form: I’ve never watched a podcast; my Gen Z son has never listened to one. At Reuters the idea of format following the audience extends to agents. They talked us through their impressive efforts to make their content machine readable as standard (using an MCP server, which regular readers might remember from a few editions ago). While putting humans at the centre of their reporting and editing, they recognise that in the very near future (“it is happening already”) agents will be perhaps even the primary customers for their work. All goes to show that publishers are going to need all this apparent energy. Thanks to everyone who hosted us this week. ## Next blog post ## [Bezos is right about news profits](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/bezos-is-right-about-news-profits) [Read more](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/bezos-is-right-about-news-profits) ![logo (2)](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/hubfs/Assets%20HBM%20Theme/Images/logo%20(2).svg) Hunter Brunt Media Ltd. 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