Reach halves dividend as swings to loss amid fewer Google referrals
Reach PLC on Wednesday said lower referrals from Google hurt digital advertising revenue badly in the first half of 2026, causing the newspaper publisher to swing to a loss and halve its dividend.
Reach shares were down 23% to 45.20 pence early Wednesday in London. The stock is down 40% over the past year.
Reach calls itself the UK and Ireland's largest commercial news publisher. It owns the Mirror, Express, Daily Record and Daily Star national titles in the UK, as well as local publications MyLondon, BelfastLive and the Manchester Evening News.
The company declared an interim dividend of 1.44p for the first half of 2026, cut from 2.88p a year before. The dividend was "rebased to create more financial flexibility", Reach said. It said it will continue to review its capital allocation policy, particularly from 2028 onwards, as its pension deficit payments reduce in size.
In 2026, Reach faces £57 million in pension contributions and £25 million in cash costs for its print site consolidation programme, it noted.
Reach swung to a pretax loss of £45.3 million in the six months that ended June 30 from a £27.0 million profit a year before, as revenue fell by 9.0% to £232.9 million from £256.0 million.
The company swung to an operating loss of £43.5 million from a £29.7 million profit a year before. On an adjusted basis, Reach recorded a pretax profit of £40.3 million, down 5.0% from £42.4 million, and an operating profit of £43.0 million, down 4.1% from £44.8 million.
Digital revenue fell by 11% to £54.2 million in the recent half-year from £61.1 million in the first half of 2025. Within this, indirect revenue from search engine referrals fell by 16%, while direct revenue declined by just 3.9%. Reach said referral volume from Google, part of Alphabet Inc, shrank by 55% for a year before.
As search engines shift toward summaries using artificial intelligence, Reach said it is prioritising the licensing of its content for legal AI usage, as well as accelerating its own use of AI via its Launchpad platform.
"We know AI firms are using our content in their products many millions of times a day," said Chief Executive Piers North. "This represents a fundamental shift in how people access our content, but through our strategy we are able to take advantage of the opportunities within this shift."
Print revenue declined by 8.3% to £178.0 million in the first half from £194.1 million a year before. Within this, circulation revenue was down 6.6% and advertising revenue down 11%.
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