Leeds city centre. Picture: Christopher Chambers/Shutterstock
Mill Media is set to expand to Leeds on the condition that it hits 500 paying subscribers for the new, unnamed title.
“If we can get 500 people to pledge to support us, then we will launch the title,” said Daniel Timms, head of commercial at Mill Media. Users are offered the option to sign up for a month or a year, and will not be charged until the title is launched.
“We think any sustainable future for local journalism is via paid subscriptions. We want to know that there are enough people in Leeds or the wider West Yorkshire region who are willing to support us to make it happen.”
Leeds would be the seventh brand from the local newsletter publisher to be launched and the third to be launched on Ghost and not Substack , where its network of titles originated.
A team has not yet been hired for the launch, but it is expected to start out with two full-time staff, said Timms. Similar to the launch of its Glasgow title The Bell and The Londoner , the Leeds edition would make stories free to read “because we want people in the city to be aware of us”, before later moving behind a paywall.
Leeds has been selected as Mill Media’s next base due to having “loads of stories that we think should be told”, said Timms. “We’ve always thought it would be a great city for us, it’s a fascinating place.”
On the site’s new page , Timms wrote: “There are fewer than 100 journalists covering the whole of West Yorkshire these days, including roughly 15 covering Leeds at the Yorkshire Evening Post , a fraction of its former strength.”
The new title will also join local news publisher Yorkshire Post , both titles owned by Iconic (formerly National World ), as well as Reach ’s Leeds Live and Yorkshire Live.
“Other people are covering the city, but we hope that our style will add something to the mix. We do more long-form pieces, more investigations, that kind of thing. And we think that’ll be really pretty good addition,” said Timms.
While subscriber revenue from 500 people will support the title to begin with, it is also being funded by previous investment in the brand and revenue from other titles as they become profitable, said Timms.
“Our titles always make a loss to begin with. We always hire more people or take on more cost and staff…But the plan is always to get every title as being financially sustainable so it can stand on its own two feet,” he added.
Mill Media will request name ideas for the title on social media, but already has some ideas “linked to the history of the city”.
Mill Media’s six titles are based in Manchester (The Mill), London (The Londoner), Glasgow (The Bell), Sheffield (The Tribune), Liverpool (The Post) and Birmingham (The Dispatch).
“We’re growing in all our cities. We now have over 13,000 paying subscribers across our six other titles,” Timms said.
The Mill (in Manchester) is currently the biggest of Mill Media’s brands with the most paying subscribers ( more than 4,000 ). Timms said its campaign to bring in 1,000 more subscribers by pledging to visit schools, allocate a full-time reporter to the local elections and give a free subscription to first-time voters had met with a positive response.
[Read more: Cameron Barr: From Washington Post to Manchester’s Mill Media ]
Timms said some Mill Media titles are profitable, while some are “roughly breaking even”.
“That’s given us the confidence that we can keep going, keep expanding. We think the model is working well, and we’d love to bring it to Leeds and West Yorkshire,” he said. “If anyone wants to get in touch about working for us in Leeds, they might be a good hire for us. We’d love them for them to reach out to us.”
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