Bosses at Reach plc have launched a drive to increase story count across its network of regional websites in a bid to boost online traffic.

Company chiefs want to increase article volume in order to boost page views, which have been badly hit by algorithm changes from major referrers such as Google and Facebook.

While there are no individual targets for journalists, reporters on office-based shifts will be expected to generate more stories in order to increase the overall volume of articles on the group’s ‘Live’ newsbrands.

One internal email, seen by HTFP, suggests an average count of eight stories a shift for reporters working in the office, although this would not apply to those who are sent out on stories.

The email, sent by a senior Reach editor, states: “We need to make more of shifts where people are not going out as drivers of volume. In practice, if you’re on a general shift and you’re not on a job, it should be at least eight stories a shift.”

The latest IPSOS traffic figures published by HTFP last week showed a mixed picture for Reach’s leading websites.

While Birmingham Live increased its page views by a third during August compared to the same month in 2023, other big city brands such as the Liverpool Echo, Chronicle Live, Bristol Post and Nottingham Post all saw significant year-on-year decreases.

The overall thinking behind the latest move was set out out in an email from Paul Rowland, editorial director of the Live network, which has also been seen by HTFP.

 

Wrote Paul: “Ultimately, this is all about building sustainable newsrooms, and in the here and now that means making sure we’re driving enough page views to fund our journalism.

“Going forward, there’s a lot of working happening to diversify our revenue streams – be it through affiliates, social video, podcasts, e-commerce or other routes that haven’t even emerged yet – but in the meantime we need to make sure we’re bringing in the funds that will support the business to continue developing and transforming the way we engage readers as the digital media landscape changes.

“The way we do that right now is through page views. It may not be a perfect metric, but as a directly monetisable digital unit, it’s the best thing we’ve got right now.

“And at the risk of reducing journalism to pure maths, the page views we generate are a compound of the number of articles we produce, and the number of times that each one is read.

“That might seem like a complete statement of the obvious, but it’s an important thing to confront when we think about the things that we need to do to fund our journalism.

“To increase page views, we need to increase either the number of articles we produce, or the number of people who read each one (or both).”

In his email, Paul explains that the move is partly in response to decreases in page views from the tech giants.

Last year a digital revenue slump of 16pc arising from a similar decline in online page views was attributed to changes in Facebook algorithms.

Wrote Paul: “Given the volatility we’ve seen in recent months (and years) with the big referrers, it’s hard to put any  certainty around our ability to consistently increase the average number of page views each article gets.

“The constant jeopardy of the environment we operate in is that the benefit of that good work can potentially be overwhelmed by a sudden and violent downturn on one or more referrer.

“We talk about volume a lot because it’s the one variable that’s entirely within our control. But please don’t misunderstand that as me implying that it’s easy to control. It’s not.

“I know how much hard work is going into increasing our volume levels to where they are at the moment. But here’s the even harder bit – volume for volume’s sake will get us nowhere.

“We need to find the ways to create more opportunities for audiences to discover our content in areas where we can compete and win, and we need to do it without sacrificing the reasons our local brands exist. It’s really tough. But it’s not impossible.

“We need to publish at scale on the populist topics that can help us bring in the big numbers from Discover – the things you’ll routinely see topping Chartbeat – but we also need to generate that scale around the topics that our most loyal readers turn to us repeatedly for.”

The latest move follows the introduction of page view targets at Reach during 2022, under which some journalists were expected to generate increases of up to 70pc in online page views on their stories by the end of that year.

Under that scheme, newsrooms were divided into eight categories, with reporters working for higher category titles being expected to deliver more page views as part of the plan.

Journalists classed as general reporters were also be expected to record more views than those classed as court reporters and public interest specialists working for the same titles as them.

Reach has been approached for further comment.