Dubai’s Khaleej Times CEO Charles Yardley: Print is still pumping and the future is live

And despite the global shift to digital, Khaleej Times is bucking the trend in the UAE, with its CEO Charles Yardley revealing that print is still a key revenue driver as the media powerhouse executes an aggressive strategy built around communities, live events, and premium video.

In a candid Q&A, Yardley laid out the group’s path to growth, revealing a healthy balance sheet that saw double-digit growth across its core platforms and a focus on building an ecosystem beyond the clutches of Big Tech.

The New Revenue Mix: Print’s Persistent Power

Yardley shared impressive 2025 growth figures, with digital revenue pacing 18% up YOY and the events platform surging by 55% YOY. Crucially, in a global landscape where print often struggles, Khaleej Times is seeing an increase in print advertising revenue YOY.

The company’s revenue split reflects this success:

Yardley credits this print resilience, in part, to new products like the weekend paper KT LUXE, which has successfully captured the attention of new marketers in the UAE’s rapidly growing luxury sector.

“There remains an appetite for print media in this region,” Yardley stated, adding that print is an “integral part of our product set,” acting as an “essential marketing tool” that drives their other platforms. He noted that even young change-makers featured in their KT Plus 150 List still view being in the newspaper as a validation of their success.

Evolving the News Business: The Three Pillars

Yardley’s view of the media business evolution is clear: it’s moving away from algorithm-dependent traffic and towards a direct, high-value connection with the audience.

His strategy is built on three core pillars:

1. Beyond the Algorithm: Building a Direct Connection

While acknowledging that Big Tech platforms like Google and Meta are “important partners” for reach and data, Yardley is adamant they are not the foundation of the business.

“We don’t want our journalism or our business to be shaped by any single platform or algorithm,” he cautioned. The long-term goal is a “healthy balance”, achieved by investing heavily in their own ecosystem: their website, app, newsletters, and first-party data. This focus aims to deepen the direct, trusted relationship Khaleej Times has cultivated since 1978.

2. Community and Events: The Growth Engine

The standout area for growth in 2026 is the LIVE events business. Yardley sees events as a “natural extension of journalism” that allows the company to “convene and build communities “beyond their core editorial products.

The shift is significant: event programming is moving from the commercial team to editorial experts, ensuring the content is high-quality and relevant. The current model, which is primarily sponsorship-driven, is set to expand with paid events being explored for 2026.

3. Premium Content: Video and Branded Content

Yardley sees “enormous growth potential in video and especially premium video advertising” in the region. Khaleej Times is “putting our chips on video, branded content, social, and live events,” bundling them as cross-platform solutions for marketers.

The company is also innovating its branded content offering with the launch of KT Talks, a site-license product that allows marketers to connect with the audience using the same tools as journalists. It’s a move designed to shift away from the reliance on press releases and build a “powerful tool for marketing and thought leadership.”

The Future: Agile, Adaptive, and Bullish

While Khaleej Times isn’t banking on subscriptions to buck global trends, they are doubling down on high-growth areas like events and digital.

Yardley remains bullish about the next 12–24 months, adapting to market shifts by focusing on “bigger ticket deal size partnerships“ that span their entire portfolio.

The long-term vision is an adaptive one: “The challenge, and the opportunity, has always been to pivot, stay agile, and continually reinvent both our brand and business models to reflect changing media habits and audience behaviours,” he concluded. For Khaleej Times, the future is about leveraging their established authority to build new, community-focused franchises and lead the next era of media.

Blueprint for Global Expansion

Charles Yardley, CEO of Khaleej Times, is not content with dominating the UAE media landscape. His strategy for the next phase of growth is a deliberate, geographically targeted expansion that leverages the brand’s heritage, new language offerings, and core multimedia IP to capture audiences and advertising spend across the Middle East and Asia.

The core of this strategy is to take the “Voice of the UAE” to markets where it has existing cultural, economic, and demographic resonance.

The New Target Markets: GCC, KSA, India, and Asia

While the bulk of Khaleej Times’ business is currently anchored in the UAE, Yardley confirmed the next phase of expansion will take the core intellectual property (IP) to key international markets.

The Go-To Markets: The focus areas for expansion are explicitly the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), India, and parts of Asia.

Leveraging Demographics: The decision is driven by the fact that Khaleej Times already has a wide-ranging demographic and nationalities within its existing readership, making an expansion into these regions a logical step to follow the audience. The strong trade and cultural ties, particularly between the UAE, the GCC, and India, provide a robust foundation for this move.

The international strategy is not a simple export of the English-language newspaper. Instead, it relies on adapting the offering to resonate locally and leveraging the company’s fastest-growing revenue streams.

A critical step in regional expansion has already been taken with the launch of KT Arabic. This move allows Khaleej Times to better reflect the primary language of the region and deliver its original, authoritative journalism to an audience that prefers to consume news in their native tongue. Yardley notes this reflects their commitment to being a UAE-based publication and tapping into the wider Arabic-speaking community.

Exporting Core Intellectual Property (IP)

The focus is on taking “core IPs” to other regions. A key example of this successful IP creation is the KT Plus social video platform, which has already “morphed into a multimedia platform spanning print, video, social and digital.”

This model, which successfully engaged younger audiences, includes tentpole franchises like the KT Plus 150 List and the subsequent KT Plus 150 Summit. By exporting this platform model—which combines editorial authority with live events, video, and digital content—Khaleej Times can rapidly establish multimedia presences in new territories.

Strategic Event-led Entry

Given the 55% YOY growth in its LIVE events business, this platform is positioned as the spearhead for international market entry. Events allow Khaleej Times to quickly convene communities and build brand engagement in a new geography. The model of using C-Suite tentpole events and custom roundtables, led by editorial experts, can be replicated to establish authority and attract high-value sponsors in the new target markets.

In Yardley’s view, this strategic expansion is a natural progression for a brand that sees its primary role as an authority: “That authority and trust enables us to grow new products and franchises... across the UAE and GCC markets.” By taking its blend of trusted journalism and high-growth multimedia platforms into the GCC, KSA, India, and parts of Asia, Khaleej Times is setting a bold, multi-pronged path for its next fifty years.

Challinor’s Summary

The interview with Charles reveals a media company successfully navigating global trends by focusing on diversification, owned platforms, and community building in the fast-paced UAE market.

Core insights I took from the interview were:

Print Resilience and Diversification: Khaleej Times bucks global trends, seeing YOY growth in print advertising revenue alongside an 18% rise in digital revenue and a 55% surge in events. This aggressive diversification means revenue is healthily split across digital, print, and events.

The Future is Live and Branded: Events are the most significant growth area, seen as a “natural extension of journalism” that builds communities and generates high-value sponsorship. Pair this with a focus on premium video and sophisticated branded content solutions (like KT Talks) to attract major partners.

Big Tech as Partner, Not Foundation: Khaleej Times views platforms like Google and Meta as useful partners for reach and data, but is actively investing in its own ecosystem (website, app, first-party data) to ensure its business is not dictated by algorithms, prioritising a direct, trusted connection with its audience.

Strategic Expansion: The company is leveraging its authority in the UAE to expand internationally, exporting its successful multimedia IP (e.g., KT Plus) and new language offerings to the wider Gulf Corporation Council area, India, and parts of Asia.