Taylor Swift tour, Euro 2024 and job cuts boost Reach profits

Taylor Swift's Eras tour, the Euro 2024 football tournament and the UK general election - as well as a deep round of cost-cutting and job losses - helped the publisher of the Mirror and Express newspapers to its best quarterly performance in almost two years.

- Mark Sweney

Reach reported a 23% increase in operating profit to £44.5m in the first half and a return to growth in digital revenues for the first time since the third quarter of 2022.

Jim Mullen, the chief executive of Reach, said recently that its print titles could become loss-making within five years and the group was relying on a digital-first strategy for survival. However, the digital strategy has faltered, declining by £21m year on year to £127.8m last year.