DMG Media is taking its UK-built creator video operation to America, betting that social video can grow to a third of the Daily Mail's ad revenue by 2027.
The Daily Mail is taking its social video operation to America, launching a New Media unit this month built entirely from the UK playbook. The US arm will run creator-led video franchises using in-house editorial talent, according to Bob Marshall, DMG Media’s US head of content, as first reported by Adweek.
The model isn’t new, just newly exported. DMG New Media, the UK operation behind it, has grown past 100 staff in a year and produces videos averaging around 300,000 views each across a stable of branded channels spun out of the group’s titles, including This Is Money, gaming outlet The Respawn and fashion channel Eliza, alongside the core Daily Mail, Mail Sport and Metro accounts. By its own count the operation now reaches more than 150 million social followers and racks up roughly 7 billion monthly video views, with two-thirds of that audience sitting in the Gen Z bracket advertisers are chasing hardest.
The economics explain the ambition. Social video already accounts for around 20% of the Daily Mail’s direct advertising revenue, a figure Kiera Haley, the publisher’s senior vice-president of sales, expects to reach 33% by 2027. For a newspaper group built on print circulation, that is a serious bet on TikTok and Instagram over the front page.
It is also a bet other UK publishers will be watching closely. Building an in-house creator studio is a very different model to the influencer partnerships most brands still lean on, and a costly one if the ad dollars don’t follow the views. But if DMG Media can prove the format travels from Kensington to the US, expect rival publishers to start eyeing their own TikTok strategies with fresh urgency.
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