Profile
The Daily Express is a national newspaper based in London. It is published in tabloid format and available in digital form. It is the flagship of Express Newspapers, which is owned by publisher Reach plc. Sir Arthur Pearson first published the paper as a broadsheet in 1900, and the Sunday Express was launched in 1918.
In 1916, Pearson sold the Daily Express to Lord Beaverbrook, and the newspaper became the most widely circulated in the world, reaching around 4 million readers in the 1940s.
In 2000, the company was bought by Northern & Shell, owned by Richard Desmond, who also published the celebrity magazine OK!. Following this acquisition, many staff members left due to controversies relating to the fact that Desmond also owned softcore pornography magazines.
In 2007, Express Newspapers left the National Publishers Association because of unpaid fees. The group, which also publishes the Star titles, was involved in numerous prominent libel cases and had to pay substantial damages during 2008-2009.
In January 2010, the Daily Express was censored by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the same year, all the media titles in Desmond’s Northern & Shell group were excluded from the Press Complaints Commission due to non-payment.
In 2018, as part of a £126.7m deal, the publishing assets of Northern & Shell were sold to Trinity Mirror, which subsequently changed its name to Reach. The Financial Times called this sale potentially the most significant change in the British newspaper industry for a decade.
The paper’s editorial stances have often been seen as aligned with euroscepticism and supportive of right-wing parties such as the Conservative Party and UKIP. In 2011, when the newspaper endorsed UKIP, it became one of the first media outlets in the United Kingdom to call for a withdrawal from the European Union.
In the July-September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, the Daily Express endorsed Liz Truss.
As part of Reach plc., Express Newspapers publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday, and various websites.
Reach plc. operates as a national and regional news publisher in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company has various national and regional brands across print and online, including HullLive, DerbyshireLive, BelfastLive, BristolLive, football.london, Devon Live, TeessideLive, EdinburghLive, MyLondon, Corkbeo, Daily Star, Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Record, ChronicleLive, OK!, ECHO, LeicestershireLive, Manchester Evening News, and BirminghamLive. It also has interests in publishing and digital classified recruitment. The company was formerly known as Trinity Mirror plc, but it changed its name to Reach plc in May 2018. Reach plc. was incorporated in 1904 and is headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
