In a nutshell:

• The Lead launches three more titles onto the newsletter subscription platform Substack, bringing its total of titles up to five
• It publishes a range of free-to-read national, local and regional news
• Subscribers can pay £4.99 a month for a bunch of perks including exclusive stories, and they can add other titles to their subscription at no extra cost
• The Lead is hoping to follow in the footsteps of other local media companies who have built audiences and businesses on Substack

A Substack news publisher is bundling local and national news into its subscription offering, as it brings two more titles to the newsletter platform.

The Lead now has five Substack newsletters in total: the national title of the same name and The Lancashire Lead both moved over to Substack this year from its in-house CMS. Yesterday, it brought over two more titles, The Blackpool Lead and The Teesside Lead, along with a brand new title, The Calderdale Lead.

All titles offer a large amount of free content. Subscribers can pay £4.99 a month (or £49 a year) for access to exclusive stories, a community chat and, soon to come, online events.

Subscribers can get premium access to multiple titles for the same price. In other words, national news subscribers can get a local news subscription at no extra charge, and vice versa.

There are 50,000 free subscribers across its entire portfolio of newsletters, and almost all of them are subscribed to the national title, The Lead. The next biggest title is The Blackpool Lead at 2,000 free subscribers.

Editorial coverage often supports one another on, for example, social housing which has been reported on both from the national dynamic and underlying systemic issues, through to proposed reform from local authorities.

The Lead North senior editor Ed Walker says that opting Substack made a lot of sense for three reasons.

Substack provides subscription and publishing integration technology “out of the box”. Substack is also becoming a social platform in its own right with community features like Notes and Chat. There is also a “proven model” for readers paying for news on it.

Of course, there are immediate comparisons to Mill Media, which grew four city-wide titles and a wide following on Substack before pivoting to newsletter competitor Ghost last month.

Walker underlined a few differences between the two news publishers. The Lead existed for two years prior to launching on Substack, and it covers a mix of national, regional and local titles. Mill Media by comparison has always opted for large metropolitan cities.

All of The Leads’ titles are campaign-driven, center-left-leaning publications, hence why a number of pop-up titles emerged for the UK’s General Election this year, both online newsletters (Bolton, Stoke-on-Trent, Altrincham & Sale, Warrington) and limited print newspapers (Bury, Hyndburn, Burnley and Rossendale).

The Blackpool Lead has also had two print runs in 2024 with 50,000 copies printed through philanthropic funding, and it aims to do more in the future.

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