 | |
| Company type | Public limited company |
|---|---|
| LSE: RCH | |
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1903; 122 years ago (1903) |
| Headquarters | One Canada Square London, England, UK[1] |
Key people |
|
| Products | National and regionalnewspapers,magazines (seelist of titles) |
| Revenue |  £538.6 million (2024)[2] |
 £102.3 million (2024)[2] | |
| £53.6 million (2024)[2] | |
| Website | www |
Reach plc (known asTrinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine anddigital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the nationalDaily Mirror,Sunday Mirror,The Sunday People,Daily Express,Sunday Express,Daily Star,Daily Star Sunday as well as the ScottishDaily Record andSunday Mail and the magazineOK! Since purchasingLocal World, it has gained 83 print publications. Reach plc's headquarters are at theOne Canada Square inLondon. It is listed on theLondon Stock Exchange.
TheDaily Mirror was launched byAlfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, "for gentlewomen" in 1903.[3] The company was first listed on theLondon Stock Exchange on 2 December 1953.[4] In 1958 theInternational Publishing Company (IPC) acquired Mirror Group Newspapers, but IPC was in turn taken over by publishing giantReed International in 1970.[5] In 1984Pergamon Holdings, a company owned byRobert Maxwell, acquired theDaily Mirror[3] from Reed International. The company was relisted asMirror Group in 1991.[6]
In 1991 the company was due to be investigated via anAnton Piller order for alleged theft of software from companies includingAdobe Inc.,Autodesk andMicrosoft. The action was delayed as it coincided with Maxwell's death, but was recommenced in 1992. Subsequently it was reported that "At the Mirror Group, for instance, 700 out of the 800 software programs in use were found to be illegal".[7]
The company bought Scottish & Universal Newspapers in 1992, and in 1997 it acquired theBirmingham Post and Mail group of newspapers.[3] In 1999 Trinity International Holdings, owners of theLiverpool Echo, merged with Mirror Group to form Trinity Mirror.[8]
During 2005 the company introduced a number of measures to manage discretionary spending more carefully, some of which attracted press attention.[9]
In 2007, the company sought to sell a number of titles: theReading Chronicle was sold to Berkshire Media Group[10] and 25 Trinity Mirror South titles were sold toNorthcliffe Media.[11] On 1 October 2007 it was announced that the sale of theRacing Post had been completed: the entire sale process had raised £263 million.[12]
In September 2008 the company announced that it would be closing the printing plant inLiverpool after 154 years of printing in the city, and transferring the work to Oldham.[13]
In February 2010, Trinity Mirror bought the regional M.E.N. Media and S&B Media divisions ofGuardian Media Group, containing 22 local titles across Northern England and in Surrey and Berkshire. This included theManchester Evening News andReading Evening Post.[14]
In March 2010 Trinity Mirror stated that it would end its bout of staff cuts and newspaper closures. The announcement came as the company reported pre-tax profits of £72.7m for 2009, exceeding analysts expectations.[15]
In January 2012 it was announced Trinity Mirror acquired Communicator Corp, a digital communications company specialising in email and mobile communications for £8m.[16] In August 2013, Trinity Mirror announced its partnership with whocanfixmycar.com, a portal connecting motorists nationwide with trusted local garages and mechanics.[17]
In June 2014, Trinity Mirror transitioned its online bingo software from Dragonfish to Virtue Fusion fromPlaytech for its group of bingo brands.[18]
In November 2015, Trinity Mirror purchasedLocal World, a major stakeholder in local news titles, fromDMGT. Local World had been formed by former Trinity chief exec David Montgomery in 2012 to consolidate all DMGT's local newspaper holdings other than theMetro, expanding their holdings while streamlining production, to make the group more saleable. Its 115 titles were formed primarily by those of Harmsworth's historicNorthcliffe Newspapers Group, alongside other smaller purchases made by DMGT and Local World subsequently, including the 2007 purchase from Trinity. The purchase increased Trinity Mirror's local circulation by around 50%. The deal valued Local World at around £220 million.[19]
In February 2018, the company completed the acquisition of the publishing assets ofNorthern & Shell, including theDaily Express,Sunday Express,Daily Star (collectively the Express & Star Group), andOK!.[20] Following completion, Trinity Mirror announced a plan to rebrand asReach, subject to investor approval at a meeting scheduled for May 2018.[21] Following completion of the acquisition, theCompetition and Markets Authority launched a preliminary investigation into the deal, requiring Trinity Mirror to keep Express Newspapers as a standalone entity.[22]
In July 2020, Reach announced that it was cutting 550 jobs, 12% of its workforce, because of falling income amid reduced demand for advertising in its titles.[23]
In January 2011, former MPPaul Marsden announced that he was considering taking legal action against Trinity Mirror, over allegedphone hacking.[24] On 24 September 2014, Trinity Mirror admitted that some of its journalists had been involved in phone hacking.[25][26] It admitted liability and agreed to pay compensation to four people who had sued for the alleged hacking of voicemails (entertainerShane Richie, soap actressesShobna Gulati andLucy Benjamin and BBC creative directorAlan Yentob). The four also received an apology. Trinity Mirror also announced that it had earlier settled six other phone hacking claims in relation to former England football managerSven-Göran Eriksson, footballerGarry Flitcroft, actorChristopher Eccleston, showbusiness agent Phil Dale, Richie's wife Christine Roche and Abbie Gibson, a former nanny of David and Victoria Beckham. As of September 2014, a further 19 claims were registered at the High Court and another 10 claimants had indicated they would bring proceedings against Trinity Mirror.[27] Other reports claimed that the number of victims could be much higher, with Evan Harris, associate director of the pressure groupHacked Off describing the revelations as: "… just the tip of a very big iceberg".[28] On 6 November 2014,Graham Johnson, pleaded guilty atWestminster Magistrates' Court.[29]
On 13 February 2015, Trinity Mirror published a public apology to "all its victims of phone hacking" on page two of theDaily Mirror.[30] It also set aside funds to cover the cost of settling phone hacking compensation payments.[31] The same apology was printed in the following editions of theSunday People andSunday Mirror.[31]
A hearing at the High Court in London heard on 3 March 2015 that one Mirror group journalist had hacked the phones of some 100 celebrities every day and that 109 stories had been published about just seven claimants.[32] On 21 May 2015, damages totalling nearly £1.25m were awarded to eight people as the result of phone hacking by Mirror Group journalists, including actressSadie Frost (£260,000) and ex-footballerPaul Gascoigne (£188,250). Other damages recipients included soap opera actorsShane Richie (£155,000),Shobna Gulati (£117,500) andLucy Benjamin (real name Lucy Taggart, £157,250), as well as BBC creative directorAlan Yentob (£85,000), TV producer Robert Ashworth (former husband ofCoronation Street actressTracy Shaw, £201,250) and flight attendant Lauren Alcorn (former girlfriend of footballerRio Ferdinand, £72,500).[33] The Mirror Group said it would consider whether to seek permission to appeal against the size of the damages, but increased the money allocated to deal with phone hacking claims from £12 million to £28 million.[33]
On 15 December 2023,Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex was awarded £140,600 by theHigh Court in damages againstMirror Group Newspapers after 15 out of 33 sample articles in his claim against MGN were ruled as being the product of phone hacking or other unlawful information gathering.[34][35][36]
Reach plc's printing division, Reach Printing Services,[37] is located at nine press sites throughout the UK, printing and distributing thirty-six major newspapers for the UK, including theDaily Mirror andSunday Mirror, theSunday People, theDaily Record andEdinburgh Live (in Scotland),[38] and other contract titles including titles for theGuardian Media Group.[39] Reach plc also owns a number of local titles in Northern England and in Surrey and Berkshire, after acquiring a number of titles from the Guardian Media Group in 2010.[14]
In 2013, Trinity Mirror launched the content websitesUsVsTh3m andAmpp3d on an experimental basis.UsVsTh3m was a website similar toBuzzFeed focused on quizzes and Flash games, edited byB3ta founderRob Manuel and running theTumblr platform.Ampp3d focused ondata journalism[40][41] and used theWordPress platform. Both websites were closed down in 2015.[42]
| National newspapers | |
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| Regional newspapers |
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| Live brand | |
