Founded in the United Kingdom in 1986, The Independent has not only sustained its brand through the digital-era transition, it has thrived. Today, it is one of the most popular news sources in the U.K. The brand has a global reach, a prospering U.S. extension and cross-platform initiatives for digital, social, newsletters and video.
Christian Broughton is The Independent’s current CEO, but his history with the news media company stretches back to the 1990s when he was a teenager. He recalled doing coffee runs, opening mail and taking on any writing assignments that came his way.
“I know our past well and the brilliant journalism that brought us here. I moved to the business side five years ago and became CEO in 2023,” he told E&P. “The values of truly independent journalism are what it’s all about for me. We maintain those values in the serious news and the lifestyle, entertainment and sports that move and amuse.”
When The Independent debuted in 1986, it was a broadsheet newspaper. By 2003, it had been redesigned as a tabloid print product that endured until 2016. In 2008, it launched a companion website.
In 2016, The Independent ceased print operations, favoring an all-digital model. In addition to two websites (one in the United Kingdom, one in the U.S.), the company also produces a branded app, short- and long-form video, and a long list of e-newsletter titles related to sports, technology, health, food, music, film, travel, news and politics, race, climate, breaking news and others. The content reaches a global audience that speaks English, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Urdu.
Charming the U.S. audience
“The Independent’s U.S. audience has been growing for many years, but in 2024, it really leapt,” Broughton reported to E&P in early December 2024.
“As the overall U.S. readership has grown — we’re up 85% to 38.4 million readers in the October ComScore — the repeat visits and pages per visit have grown even faster as our readership comes to read and explore the site, so our total page views have grown over five times since the end of 2023,” he said.
The company has endeavored to learn about its U.S. audience, from basic demographics to what motivates them as individuals.
“The median age of our U.S. readers is 48, with 43% falling in the highly sought-after 18-49 age group,” he added. “This group is well-educated — 55% hold degrees — and financially influential, with 48% earning $100,000 or more in household income. Gender representation is also balanced, with 52% female and 48% male readers.”
Broughton described U.S. readers and viewers as actively engaged with the world around them.
“They’re not passive news consumers; they’re action-driven individuals who use trustworthy reporting to inform their decisions and conversations,” he asserted. “Our research shows they are 58% more likely to discuss diversity and inclusion and 128% more likely to identify as people who embrace change compared to the average reader. This speaks to their forward-thinking, solutions-oriented mindset.”
Broughton said the company is heavily invested in growing The Independent US’ reporting staff.
“I have to hat-tip to our brilliant leaders in The Independent US office,” he said. “Louise Thomas joined us from the Mail Online early in 2024 and has reshaped our newsroom. Blair Tapper is our senior vice president leading the sales team, and Zach Leonard, my predecessor as CEO, returned home to the U.S. last year to lead our expansion. In 2025, we will double our commercial team and grow our editorial team — which is largely based in New York, Washington and the West Coast — by 25%.”
In an age when trust in news is low, and many U.S. news enterprises are seen as being politically leaning, The Independent aims to be different.
“For 38 years, we have stood apart by championing truly independent journalism,” Broughton said. “That means reporting the truth as our journalists see it, free from the interference of political parties and the devotion to dogmas and ideologies that are so prevalent across other media brands. With most news sources, you have to be mindful of the filter they are applying, forcing their reporting and analysis to fit the worldview their readers expect. But the world is not like that, and neither is The Independent.”
The CEO believes it’s a mistake to be “drawn too much into the character drama of politics.” Instead, he’d like to see The Independent’s political coverage reach beyond the Washington, D.C., Beltway and discover how policies actually impact people’s lives.
“Take ‘The A-Word,’ the Bel Trew documentary," he suggested. “The A in the title stands for abortion. Reproductive rights are hard to discuss sometimes, but they have huge impacts on the lives of women and families and healthcare provision. We need to be able to talk about these subjects.” The documentary won the 2023 Marie Colvin Award from the British Journalism Awards. The award honors outstanding journalists in the name of Colvin, a foreign correspondent who was killed in 2012 while covering the Syrian war in Homs for The Sunday Times.
As companions to hard news, The Independent also produces lifestyle content and practical explainers.
“We believe in building deep engagement in verticals globally. Take travel,” Broughton offered an example. “We launched the TravelSmart video series this year, and it’s been watched 5 million times, and we’re introducing more creators with authentic perspectives to share. We’ve had a million streams of our travel podcast this year; 400,000 people subscribe to our twice-weekly travel email. We’ve been rolling out a new hotel reviews section, which has led to over 2,000 bookings.”
For the U.S. audience, The Independent has a new personal finance section on the website, MoneySmart, which will also extend to social media, video productions, email newsletters and a podcast.
Social is also an important audience touchpoint for The Independent, and Broughton explained that they consider it a unique platform requiring particular investment in resources.
“You have to be passionate about creating high-quality journalism to post on social media just as much as you focus on journalism on your own site,” he said. “It can’t be an afterthought. Too many publishers think mainly of their sites and adapt their work to social media as a secondary process. You have to start with why people follow your accounts, focus on what they came for, and allow people to choose different verticals on different dedicated accounts.”
The Independent US social pages represent a fraction of the audiences they draw to their global brand’s social pages, but they’re growing, too. On X/Twitter, they have 3.5 million followers, while the U.S. page on the same platform has just 33,800 followers (as of mid-December). The Independent on Facebook boasts 10 million followers, while the U.S. counterpart page has just 88,000 to date. Besides those two most popular social platforms for the brand, The Independent also has a social presence on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, Threads and YouTube.
Another way for The Independent to communicate with its audience is through events. In 2024, they hosted “Climate 100” in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week. “We wanted to celebrate 100 individuals making change happen across diverse sectors, from scientists to government leaders, activists to artists, prominent figures and everyday heroes,” Broughton said.
“The Climate 100 event represents The Independent’s long-standing commitment to driving meaningful conversations and action on climate change,” he noted. “As a global media brand with nearly 40 years of leadership in climate and environmental reporting, this event was a natural extension of our mission to shine a spotlight on changemakers who are driving progress in the fight against climate change.
“We have a great ability to bring people together. We’ve organized marches with more than a million people in attendance. How’s that for engagement? And with the climate debate, we need people who can change the future to come together. We need to celebrate, not just focus on the negative,” he said.
The news media publisher also launched Independent TV in 2020, with a video channel on its website, mobile app and smart TVs.
“You can also see key markers of trust and loyalty in Independent TV,” Broughton suggested. “More than 70 million minutes of video are consumed on our site globally each month. Bel Trew’s feature-length documentary, ‘The A-Word,’ has been covered by CNN and screened in communities across the U.S. At the same time, our mid-format series, TravelSmart, is hugely popular on our own site and across video platforms, such as YouTube.”
Independent TV enables the publisher to sell programming sponsorships, which Broughton said is “a major part of our revenue mix.”
“And we will be driving further growth with e-commerce revenues,” he added. “In the U.K., our shopping and reviews pages lead the industry, and we are launching this on our new dot-com URL, [the-independent.com] for the U.S. market.” Though he did not cite figures, Broughton said The Independent has doubled revenues and profits in the past five years. “And we have big plans for 2025.”
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She's reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
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