Future media brands
Future plc’s share price plummeted on Tuesday as the UK-based magazine and specialist publishing giant said Google changes had led to a 20% decline in online audience in the first half of its financial year to 31 March.
This continues a trend as Future’s total audience was also down about 20% in the six months to 30 September.
Future’s share price fell 28% on Wednesday to a level last seen in 2017 of £2.82 per share, making the company worth £267m.
In the year to 30 September 2025, Future revenue fell 6% to £739.2m and profit before tax fell 11% to £91.9m.
Future claims to reach one in three UK adults every month with more than 200 brands which include the likes of Marie Claire, The Week and Techradar. At its peak in 2021, Future was valued by the London stock market at nearly £4bn.
The company’s share price has been in steady decline since the end of 2021 as it has failed to offset structural decline in its legacy magazine business with sufficient digital growth.
Future’s main digital revenue streams, advertising and e-commerce, have been heavily impacted by falling referral traffic from Google. So far Future has failed to develop significant online subscriptions revenue.
It is currently focusing on developing new sources of revenue via Future Optic, which promises to optimise brand visibility on LLMs , and Future Collab, an attempt to sell more native advertising and brand partnerships by working with social media creators.
CEO Kevin Li Ying had predicted that Google changes would level out this year, but he told investors on a conference call on Tuesday: “What we’ve seen is that rather than stabilise year-on-year, it has just become tougher with organic search results being further down, the Google search page driving more zero-click search impacting our sessions.
“This is a challenge, not just for us, but for the industry. We remain cautious in our outlook on sessions and expect continued decline rather than stabilisation of trends.”
Future appears to have been hit by the rise of zero-click searches following the rollout of Google AI Overviews and by changes on Google Discover which have downgraded publisher posts in favour of Youtube and X (formerly Twitter) .
Li Ying also warned that pay-per click inflation (higher online advertising costs) has hit Future’s results. While publishers should welcome higher advertising rates, Future relies on paid advertising to drive traffic to its insurance comparison site Go Compare.
CFO Sharjeel Suleman warned that e-commerce and programmatic advertising revenue will decline in the second half of this financial year.
Direct-sold advertising revenue is expected to grow, as is revenue from Go Compare.
He said Future was cutting costs through automation where it can.
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