Substack dominates website growth charts | Mediahuis Ireland shares subs lessons
Plus Metro's circulation figures show it reduced free distribution for August, and a Bill could criminalise public officials lying to media.
Welcome to your daily Press Gazette media briefing on Wednesday, 17 September, brought to you today in association with Admiral, The Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) Company.
In today’s feature, Admiral shares a practical playbook for media executives looking to break down silos, unify fragmented visitor experiences, and unlock higher ARPV and long-term revenue. Learn how publishers are using VRM to connect the dots across adblock recovery, subscriptions, consent, and engagement — with zero dev lift.
Substack is definitely having a moment.
There’s a clear trend across our latest global, US and UK traffic data. Other publishers are struggling to get traction while Substack leads growth in all three rankings.
Notably, it’s not just about audience growth, it’s engagement too: in our UK data for July, minutes spent with Substack were up almost 300% in a year.
Substack was 48th when ranked by audience - about equal with regional website of the year Kent Online - but 24th by total minutes and 12th by average minutes per person.
In the US, Substack was one of just five sites with year-on-year growth in visits in August - and has overtaken the Daily Mail - while globally it was the only one out of the entire top 50 English-language online newsbrands.
What does this tell us? It’s not that more traditional news publishers are about to be put out of business by Substack and its thousands of writers. But it does show the power of a collective platform like this in a world when people put value on individual writers and sometimes very specific and niche topics that might struggle as a standalone publication.
In other data, we also have the latest UK national newspaper ABC figures. After more than four years of pretty consistent free distribution, Metro’s figures dropped by 30% in August - but we understand it was a deliberate adjustment for the summer and it’s back to normal now.
We’ve got subscription lessons from Mediahuis Ireland - which crossed the 100,000 mark in June - from our conference last week. Some of the advice effectively translates to “go big or go home”.
And finally, a bill was put forward by the UK Government yesterday that would criminalise public officials lying to the media.
Hopefully this would put a stop to outrages like the Post Office allegedly lying to the BBC and making it doubt the accuracy of its perfectly legitimate reporting. But could it also stop public servants wanting to speak to the press at all if they can help it? If they don’t speak to us, they might think, they can’t get caught out.
If your journalism has made a difference this year, enter the British Journalism Awards now for a chance of winning the ultimate newsroom accolade. Deadline for entry submissions is next Thursday 25 September.
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On Press Gazette
Mediahuis Ireland subscriptions lessons: ‘Don’t underestimate your value’
Chief customer officer Sheena Peirse advises publishers dive in, don't just "dip your toe in the water".
Top 50 news websites in the US in August: Substack leads just five sites with year-on-year growth
Substack is now the fourteenth biggest news site in the US.
Top 50 English-language news sites in the world: Substack is only site to report YoY traffic growth in August
Substack was up 49% to 123.8 million visits in August compared to a year before, while the other 49 sites saw a dip.
50 biggest UK news websites in July: Minutes spent with Substack up almost 300% in a year
Some 45.8 million minutes were spent with Substack content in the UK in July, up 286% compared to July 2024.
Newspaper ABCs: Metro slims down free distribution for August
Metro put out 30% less copies on average per day in August as it slimmed down its print run for the summer.
Bill could make it illegal for public officials to mislead the public
Public Office (Accountability) Bill includes new legal duty of candour.
British Journalism Awards 2025: Deadline is 25 September
British Journalism Awards are open for entries.
News in brief
An unknown number of journalists, but at least three, have reportedly been laid off from Penske Media’s Rolling Stone. (Press Gazette)
Legal experts have expressed doubt over Trump's chances in his $15bn defamation suit against The New York Times, with one calling the suit "frivolous" and more like a “long Truth Social post” than a real case. (Poynter)
NPR is to cut $5m this year as local stations struggle after Congress ended federal funding for public media. CEO Katherine Maher says NPR’s $300m budget will be balanced, helped by a rise in listener donations making up for the cuts "in the short term". (NPR)
Trump has signed a fourth executive order delaying Tiktok sell-off deadline. The app now has until 16 December to finalise the sale to a US company or face a full ban. (Social Media Today)
Also on Press Gazette
Royal cleaner stories removed by Times and Sun after authenticity questions
AI bots appear to be replacing human traffic on publisher websites
Regional daily ABCs: Print circulation down by average of 18% in H1 2025
Latest podcast: Reach versus Newsquest, publishers versus AI and the break-up of Google
In which Charlotte and Dom discuss: the latest mass job cuts at Reach, new attacks on journalism from AI bots and what the proposed break-up of Google's adtech business could mean for publishers.
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