Agora Group 

Agora had a better 2025 than it has had in several years, though the improvement came with a cost. Group revenue reached PLN 1.61 billion (approximately €379 million), up 8.5% on 2024, and operating profit rose to PLN 89.7 million (€21.1 million) from PLN 82.1 million (€19.4 million) the year before. Net profit attributable to shareholders more than tripled to PLN 22.8 million (€5.4 million) from PLN 6.1 million (€1.4 million) in 2024 (from continuing operations). The company paid its first dividend since 2019, at PLN 0.25 per share. On the surface, these are the numbers of a company in recovery. Below the surface, Agora’s journalism operation spent much of 2025 being restructured, reduced, and repositioned for a future it has not yet fully defined.

Agora is a Warsaw-based media group listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. It is one of Poland’s largest and most recognisable media companies, built around Gazeta Wyborcza, the country’s leading quality daily newspaper, founded in 1989 and foundational to Poland’s democratic transition. Today the group is considerably more than a newspaper company. Its five operating segments include cinemas (Helios, Poland’s largest cinema chain), outdoor advertising (AMS), radio (Eurozet, whose portfolio includes the national talk station TOK FM and the mass-reach music network Radio Zet), internet services (Gazeta.pl and related digital brands), and digital and printed press. The journalism operation, centred on Gazeta Wyborcza and its digital ecosystem, sits within the Digital and Printed Press segment, and it is the group’s most troubled business by some distance.

Agora Group: key financial indicators 2024–2025

Source: Agora Group Consolidated Financial Statements, 31 December 2025, authorised 19 March 2026. All euro equivalents are approximate, calculated using the 2025 average EUR/PLN exchange rate of 4.24, as published by multiple market sources including exchangerates.org.uk.

Agora’s journalism assets are organised primarily under Wyborcza Sp. z o.o. (which publishes Gazeta Wyborcza in print and digital form), Gazeta.pl Sp. z o.o. (the group’s digital news and advertising portal), and related titles and supplements. The group’s radio journalism, particularly TOK FM, a news and current affairs station with a loyal urban audience, sits in the Radio segment alongside the commercial Eurozet network.

Agora journalism asset map

Signals

The journalism unit is losing money and cutting staff

The Digital and Printed Press segment, Agora’s closest proxy for its print and digital journalism operation, posted an operating loss of PLN 13.4 million (€3.2 million) in 2025, worse than the PLN 9.6 million (€2.3 million) loss in 2024. Revenue fell from PLN 200 million (€47m) to PLN 184.6 million (€44m). This decline partly reflects structural pressures: print advertising and single-copy sales continued to fall, and the decision to outsource Gazeta Wyborcza‘s printing to Polska Press (a Verlagsgruppe Orlen-owned competitor) eliminated an internal cost centre but also removed around 47 jobs in the printing operation in the third quarter of 2025.

More significantly, in December 2025 Agora announced a sweeping restructuring across its digital journalism businesses. Wyborcza Sp. z o.o. planned to cut up to 60 positions, Gazeta.pl up to 63 (roughly a quarter of that company’s workforce), and Eurozet Consulting up to 13. When smaller reductions at Agora itself and in the radio division are included, the group planned to eliminate around 166 roles in total, about 6.6% of its entire workforce, with most cuts completed by February 2026. The stated reason was that the digital operations were not performing effectively enough under their current model. The restructuring provision recognised in the accounts was PLN 9.3 million (€2.2 million) across the journalism and internet segments combined.

This is significant as Gazeta Wyborcza is one of the most politically and culturally important newspapers in Central Europe. Cuts of this scale in its editorial and operational staff represent a genuine contraction in the depth and reach of its journalism.

Digital subscriptions are growing but not fast enough to compensate for print losses

Agora does not disclose a precise digital subscription figure for Gazeta Wyborcza in its financial statements, but copy sales across the Digital and Printed Press segment, which include both print and digital subscriptions, totalled PLN 94.8 million (€22.4m) in 2025, reflecting continued decline in print partially offset by digital subscriber growth. The group has been building a paid digital model around Wyborcza for several years, and that work continues. But neither digital subscriptions nor digital advertising are expanding fast enough to offset the structural decline in print advertising, which fell sharply again in 2025.

The Internet segment (primarily Gazeta.pl), which operates more as an ad-supported mass-reach platform than a subscription journalism model, generated PLN 117.3 million (€27.7m) in revenue but an operating loss of PLN 15.3 million (€3.6m). It is the group’s worst-performing segment by profitability. The restructuring of Gazeta.pl staff in early 2026 reflects a judgment that the current cost base cannot be sustained at current revenue levels.

The rest of the group is healthy and cross-subsidising journalism

What makes Agora’s situation distinctive is the contrast between its journalism businesses and everything else. Helios, the cinema chain, generated revenue of PLN 655 million (€154m) and an operating profit of PLN 75.9 million (€17.9m) in 2025, its strongest performance in years, driven by a strong film slate and recovering audiences. The Radio segment (Eurozet and TOK FM) posted PLN 414 million (€98m) in revenue and PLN 76.1 million (€18m) in operating profit. The Outdoor segment (AMS billboards and digital panels) added PLN 34.8 million (€8.2m) in operating profit on PLN 240.5 million (€57m) in revenue. In effect, Agora’s cinemas, radio stations, and billboard network are profitable enough to carry the journalism operation through a period when it cannot cover its own costs.

This arrangement raises an obvious question about how long it is sustainable, and what happens to Gazeta Wyborcza if the cinemas have a bad year or advertisers retreat from outdoor media.

TOK FM is a different kind of asset

Within Agora’s journalism portfolio, TOK FM deserves separate mention. As a news and current affairs radio station, talk-format, national reach, politically engaged audience, it occupies a position in Poland that few other commercial broadcasters can match. It sits within the profitable Radio segment consolidated alongside Radio Zet and the wider Eurozet network, making it harder to isolate its individual performance. But in the context of Polish media, which has been significantly affected by years of public broadcaster capture under the previous government, TOK FM’s independence and consistent journalism output represent genuine public value.

The political context matters

Any assessment of Agora’s journalism must acknowledge the political environment in which it operates. Under the Law and Justice government (2015–2023), Gazeta Wyborcza and TOK FM were among the most prominent targets of official hostility, facing advertising boycotts by state-owned companies and consistent attacks from public media. The change of government in late 2023 improved the advertising environment (state-linked advertisers returned to independent media) and this is partly visible in the group’s improved 2024 and 2025 results. But the structural challenges facing Gazeta Wyborcza predate and outlast any particular political cycle.

Agora’s journalism is contracting even as the company recovers

The paradox of Agora’s 2025 is that the group as a whole is in better financial health than it has been for years, while its journalism operation is simultaneously shrinking. Revenue is down in the press segment, losses are widening, staff are being cut, and the printing of Gazeta Wyborcza has been handed to a competitor with close ties to the current government, a decision that attracted criticism from some journalists and observers, whatever its commercial logic. The restructuring provision of PLN 9.3 million (€2.2m) booked in 2025 reflects real human and editorial cost. Whether Agora’s cinemas and billboards can continue funding the digital transition of its journalism long enough for it to succeed is the central question the company faces going into 2026.