Taylor Swift tour and job cuts help lift profits of Mirror publisher Reach

Digital ad revenues return to growth, driven in part by articles about pop superstar, Euro 2024 and election

Taylor Swift's Eras tour, the Euro 2024 football tournament and the UK general election - as well as a deep round of cost-cutting and job losses - helped the publisher of the Mirror and Express newspapers to its best quarterly performance in almost two years.

Reach reported a 23% increase in operating profit to 44.5m in the first half and recorded a return to growth in digital revenues, which it is banking on to secure a future for its newspaper titles, for the first time since the third quarter of 2022.