How Reach CEO Piers North is rewiring the news for Gen Z era

“There is no silver bullet,” Piers North says, leaning into the reality of a 2026 media landscape that feels less like a steady stream and more like a permanent white-water rapid.

As CEO of Reach, the UK’s largest commercial publisher, North isn’t just watching the tide change; he’s rebuilding the boat while it’s in motion. Following a pivotal strategic pivot in mid-2025, Reach has moved from a “scale-at-all-costs” philosophy to a more surgical, data-driven play where video, subscriptions, and AI aren’t just buzzwords—they’re the bottom line.

From page views to play buttons

If 2024 was about experimentation, 2025 was the year Reach went “all in” on the moving image. North’s strategic acceleration of video has seen views skyrocket from 3bn to over 8bn in just twelve months. Now in 2026, the business is ready to kick on. 

“We’ve really accelerated our work with video,” North explains, noting that the focus has shifted toward where the audience actually “lives.” For Reach, that’s increasingly TikTok, where nearly 70% of its audience is under 34. Through vertical-first brands like Curiously and Hear Me Out, Reach has successfully courted Gen Z by pivoting away from the “voice of God” reporting style toward personality-led, social-first storytelling.

The end of the ‘Free’ era?

Perhaps the biggest seismic shift in the Reach universe is the breach of the paywall. After years of championing a purely ad-funded model, the launch of digital subscriptions for the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo late last year signalled a new chapter.

“We are a pyramid without its top,” North admits. “Subscriptions are an untapped opportunity to add to our revenue mix. Reader revenue is more predictable than the whims of referrer algorithms.”

While print still holds the “lion’s share” of total revenue, the digital mix is becoming a complex cocktail. 40% of digital revenues now come from direct sources, with “diversified” streams—e-commerce, affiliates, and now subs—making up a third of that pile.

Data is the new creative

In the advertising arena, the “spray and pray” days are over. North points to a landmark 2025 partnership with Tesco as the blueprint for the future. By overlapping Reach’s first-party audience insights with Tesco’s retail data, it created ultra-granular cohorts—like "parents with babies living near Bristol.”

“Collecting data for its own sake is pointless,” says North. “There has to be a fair value exchange.” This “thoughtful” use of data is Reach’s shield against a “tough” UK ad market and the ongoing transformation of global agencies.

While the industry frets over AI-generated articles, North is looking at the plumbing. Reach is leveraging AI to distill thousands of data points—such as scroll depth, commercial appeal, and retention—into instant, actionable metrics for editors.

“It won’t be just about page views,” he insists. “Being able to navigate those choices instantly will be hugely empowering for our leaders.”

The verdict: a mixed economy

As we look toward the rest of 2026, North is clear-eyed about the “distribution challenge” and the power of global platforms. While the relationship with Big Tech remains “cordial,” he is under no illusions that their agendas align.

“We can’t rely on global platforms to safeguard our vision,” he concludes. For North, the future of Reach isn’t about choosing between tradition and tech, it’s about mastering the “tricks and trades” of the attention economy to ensure that local accountability and trusted journalism don’t just survive, but scale.

Challinor’s summary

Under the leadership of CEO Piers North, Reach is undergoing a fundamental rewiring of its business model to navigate the “post-algorithmic” era of 2026. The interview revealed a publisher aggressively moving from a reliance on social-media referrals to a “mixed economy” of verified first-party data and direct reader relationships.

For me, there are two different summaries to glean: overall (strategic) and secondly, with specific reference to the advertising arena.  

A: Overall, the key strategic takeaways for me are around video as the new baseline, the end of the “scale only” model and AI as an “operational force” (i.e. rather than focusing purely on content generation, Reach is using AI to synthesise thousands of data points to empower editors with real-time decision-making tools. Plus Data sovereignty: Reach is proving the value of its first-party data: they are offering advertisers highly targeted, high-conversion cohorts that global platforms cannot replicate.

Ultimately, North envisions a future where traditional media brands survive not by competing with big tech on scale, but by leveraging their local heritage and trusted data to provide a "stable, accountable alternative" in an increasingly fragmented digital world.

B: Advertising:  

While Reach is pivoting toward digital subscriptions, the “foundation” remains advertising. However, the way local businesses spend that money is undergoing a radical shift in 2026.

Based on Piers North’s insights and current 2026 market trends, what struck me mostly is that Reach is impressively re-engineering local advertising for the year ahead in the following three ways:

1. The “Tesco effect” for small businesses

The landmark 2025 partnership with Tesco—overlapping retail purchase data with Reach’s local reader insights—isn’t just for the giants. In 2026, this technology is trickling down. Advertisers are moving away from broad (eg ”Greater Manchester”) tags. Instead, they are targeting “Liverpool FC fans (of which I am one!), who also shop for organic produce in say, South Liverpool.”

Because Reach is collecting first-party data via its new Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo “Premium” sign-ups, advertisers get access to authenticated users. These are not just cookies; they are real people with verified locations and interests.

2. Video

With Reach hitting 8bn video views in 2025, the “local ad” has moved from the sidebar to the social feed. Local advertisers are increasingly utilising Reach’s Gen Z brands (like Curiously) to run vertical video ads.

Research from PA Consulting shows that ads on local news sites evoke 26% higher feelings of trust than those on standalone social platforms. Local businesses are leveraging this “halo effect” to combat the rise of AI-generated misinformation.

3. The “premium” ad environment

Contrary to popular belief, the move to subscriptions hasn’t killed the ad model; it has refined it.

Subscribed “premium” readers see fewer ads, but the ones they do see are in a cleaner, “white-space” environment. For local advertisers, Reach is shifting the focus from “page views” to “time spent” and “scroll depth.” If a reader is paying for content, they are more likely to spend 3x longer on the page, making the ad placement significantly more valuable.

4. AI-driven ad optimisation

North highlighted that Reach is using AI to help editors make decisions.  

On the commercial side, this translates as Reach now using AI in a smart way, to tell a local say, Bristol store exactly what time of day and on which format (video v article) their ad will most likely convert.  

AI tools are helping smaller advertisers adapt their creative assets across the 120+ titles in the Reach network instantly, ensuring a local message fits a national-scale platform.  

Overall, I think this is an impressive case study.  

The previous issue saw Mark sit down with Charles Yardley, CEO, Khaleej Times, Dubai.