UK Newspapers launch on Readly

Digital newsstand Readly has expanded its portfolio to include UK daily newspapers on its platform for the first time. With German and Swedish newspapers already available on the app - leading London newspaper the Evening Standard and the UK’s largest quality newsbrand The Independent - have now joined Readly from immediate effect.

The newspapers will be available to Readly’s audiences in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden, adding readership to both current and back issues for publisher ESI Media. With the relationship increasing the digital reach and presence of the titles, Readly’s robust data analytics and insights will also be accessible as part of the partnership.

Readly has pioneered the ‘all-you-can-read’ subscription with a monthly fee of £7.99, which gives consumers unlimited access to a range of 1,800 UK magazine titles, as well as a growing inventory of thousands of international titles. Readly provides users access to its portfolio anytime, anywhere, at the click of a button both on and offline - on their phones, tablets and laptops. With over a million app downloads, during 2019, 83 million digital issues were read on the Readly platform globally - an increase of almost 40% from the prior year.  

Sophie Hanbury, Director, Syndication and Licensing Partnerships at ESI Media, said: “We are delighted to be the first UK newspapers to join the Readly platform. This represents an excellent opportunity to bring our award-winning journalism to an even greater audience, especially given the success and international appeal Readly has enjoyed to date. We are looking forward to working together on our mutual objective of delivering quality news from our established brands to global audiences.”

Ranj Begley, UK Managing Director and Chief Content Officer at Readly said: “We are excited to welcome UK newspapers - the Evening Standard and The Independent - to our portfolio, adding richness and depth to our consumer offer as we look to enable the discovery of quality content. One of the many benefits to publishers of Readly’s ‘all-you-can-read’ service is that readers often enjoy discovering new titles and subjects of interest, and we expect strong cross-pollination from existing and new subscribers to our newspaper and magazine inventory.”

The Independent’s daily edition e-newspaper and the Evening Standard’s free daily newspaper will now be available as part of the Readly subscription. The papers join Swedish newspaper Expressen and German Sunday editions of Axel Springer’s newspapers Bild, Welt, Welt Kompakt and B.Z. on the platform.

Begley continues: “We work with 800 publishers worldwide, all looking to leverage their digital assets and diversify their revenue streams. Readly offers a compelling proposition to help increase their digital circulation and boost their ABC figures. In addition, with the reader’s attention becoming a precious commodity, Readly’s 25 billion data points provides publishers, editors and marketers with a deeper understanding of reader behaviour. Through analysis of how full issues are navigated - from what is most interesting to readers and where they spend their time - publishers can become more data driven in optimising content to maximise readership and further develop their business.”

Providing verified news and content from established sources, Readly app downloads have increased significantly with the onset of isolation in March, seeing downloads on all markets up 62 percent compared to March 2019 and 21 percent compared to February 2020.

Visit www.readly.com for further information. 

ENDS