DerbyWorld
DerbyWorld is a digital-only city news website for Derby in Derbyshire, published by National World. It went live on 27 April 2023 as part of the publisher's expansion of its 'World' city brands into the East Midlands, and it publishes Derby news, sport, events and lifestyle coverage online. The site was launched into a city traditionally served by Reach plc's Derby Telegraph, and it forms part of a national network of city sites alongside sister titles including NottinghamWorld, its near neighbour in the East Midlands. Its official website is derbyworld.com.
Overview
DerbyWorld is an online-only title. It has no print edition, and it was created to give its publisher a digital presence in a city where it owned weekly newspapers nearby, such as the Derbyshire Times and the Matlock Mercury, but no daily title. Its published remit is the life of Derby and its surrounding areas: local news, sport centred on Derby County, events, lifestyle material and community stories, updated continuously for web and mobile readers.
At launch the site was deliberately presented as a fresh perspective for the city rather than as an extension of an existing Derby newspaper. Its launch journalist invited readers to help shape the news list and the direction of the title, and promised coverage using video, audio, pictures and words. That collaborative invitation, and the emphasis on celebrating the city as well as questioning those in power, became the site's founding editorial statement.
History and Founding
DerbyWorld was announced in February 2023. On 9 February National World said it would launch a news and sport website for Nottingham that month, with sites for Leicester and Derby to follow in the coming weeks. NottinghamWorld launched in March 2023, and DerbyWorld went live on 27 April 2023, having been trailed the previous week when its launch journalist's appointment was reported.
The launch belonged to a larger strategy. National World's owner had been founded and listed on the London Stock Exchange in September 2019 as a takeover vehicle set up by David Montgomery. On 2 January 2021 it bought JPI Media Publishing for £10.2 million, acquiring a portfolio formed from the former Johnston Press business, which had been placed in administration in November 2018 before JPI Media took charge of its titles. Those titles included The Scotsman, the Yorkshire Post and the News Letter, and more than 100 newspapers and websites in total. JPI Media was rebranded as National World Publishing in April 2022.
After launching its national website, nationalworld.com, in March 2021, the group created city websites in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, London, Birmingham and Bristol. Derby, Nottingham and Leicester were announced as the next wave in February 2023, shortly after National World had brought several of its existing daily titles, including the Sunderland Echo and The News in Portsmouth, into its 'City World' structure. Derby was therefore a new-market launch: a city the group's print history had not served with a daily, entered online only.
Launch Team
DerbyWorld's launch was led on the ground by Michael Broomhead, a senior digital journalist who took day-to-day charge of the site and was described as its de facto editor. The publisher said at launch that it had not yet appointed an editor specifically for the site; Broomhead reported to Nancy Fielder, editor-in-chief for National World's Cities division.
Broomhead brought an unusual route to the job. He had previously spent 13 years with the Derbyshire Times, a National World weekly based in Chesterfield, before joining Reach plc in 2022 as a digital publishing editor and then working as content editor at the Nottingham Post. He took voluntary redundancy from Reach in March 2023, after that publisher announced 192 journalism job cuts, and rejoined National World to launch the Derby site. He described himself as Derbyshire born and bred, with links to Derby and long residence in the area.
Sport at launch was provided by Dylan Oakley, covering Derby County, supported by Paul Clarke, National World's group sports editor, who was based in Hull and had previously worked as a sports content editor and reporter at Reach. Advertising was led by Charlotte Shemilt, a former Derby Telegraph field sales manager who had become a media sales director at National World.
Editorial Promise and Early Months
In his introductory editorial, Broomhead set out what DerbyWorld intended to do. In paraphrase, he promised to explore issues that mattered to readers, to give people in Derby more of a voice, and to celebrate the city, its people and its businesses. He said the site would not shrink from asking difficult questions of those in authority where necessary, while also offering lighter, escapist material. Regular conversation with readers, and their involvement in shaping the news list, were presented as part of the title's method rather than as an afterthought.
The site's early months were unsettled. Broomhead left in August 2023, after about four months in the role, having been its sole dedicated editorial member of staff. On leaving he criticised the wider industry's cost-cutting in strong terms and said his own working situation had become unsustainable. His departure came during a period of cuts across National World affecting more than 50 journalists, alongside a voluntary redundancy scheme for staff with longer service. NottinghamWorld's launch editor, Caroline Barry, left in the same month, leaving both East Midlands city sites without editors.
In October 2023 the two editorships were merged and Abigail Rabbett was appointed editor of both DerbyWorld and NottinghamWorld. Rabbett had joined National World in May 2023 as a customer loyalty editor, after earlier editing Reach plc's Norfolk Live, Suffolk Live and Cambridgeshire Live sites; at Reach she had become the publisher's youngest editor, aged 23, in 2021. She described the Derby and Nottingham patches as two exceedingly interesting areas to cover in a digital-first way.
The City It Serves
Derby is a city in Derbyshire, in the East Midlands, on the River Derwent. It has a long industrial history associated with railways and engineering, and it is home to major employers in advanced manufacturing as well as to the University of Derby. Its cathedral, its historic centre, its suburbs and the surrounding Derbyshire towns and villages form the natural patch of a Derby city site, and Broomhead's launch writing explicitly embraced Derby and its surrounding areas, rather than the city boundary alone, as the title's territory.
For local journalism, Derby's agenda includes Derby City Council, development and regeneration in the city centre, transport, schools, health services, courts, and the businesses and cultural venues on which the city's identity rests. It also includes the Peak District fringe and Derbyshire communities that look to Derby for work, shopping, education and sport, even though National World's weekly titles continue to serve some of those communities in print.
Coverage and Sport
DerbyWorld's coverage, as described at launch and in its own site description, spans local news, sport, events and lifestyle. News coverage follows the standard city-site mix: breaking news, council and public services, crime and courts, education, health, transport, weather and community stories. Events and lifestyle coverage covers what is happening in the city, from entertainment and food and drink to family activities and local attractions.
Sport is anchored by Derby County Football Club, who play at Pride Park and whose fortunes are the dominant sporting story in the city. Dedicated Derby County coverage was built into the launch team, with a named writer for the club and support from the group's sports editor, reflecting the importance National World attached to football as a driver of regular, loyal digital audiences for its city sites. Other Derby and Derbyshire sport sits alongside that football core.
Funding and Business Model
DerbyWorld is a free-to-read, commercial website funded principally by advertising. Its publisher's city-site model depended on building large monthly digital audiences rather than on charging readers directly. Across the City World network, National World invested in digital roles while restructuring other parts of the business, and in 2022 it announced a partnership with the advertising technology company DanAds to develop a self-serve advertising platform designed to connect readers with local businesses more directly.
The appointment of a dedicated advertising lead with experience at the rival Derby Telegraph underlined that DerbyWorld was a commercial as well as an editorial launch: the new site needed local advertisers as well as readers if it was to establish itself in a market where the incumbent title had deep relationships with Derby businesses.
Audience and Competition
DerbyWorld's direct competitor is the Derby Telegraph, the historic city daily owned by Reach plc, whose website covers Derby news and Derby County. Broomhead himself had worked for both publishers within a year, and his move illustrated the extent to which the two groups were competing for the same journalists as well as the same readers in East Midlands cities.
The site's intended audience is people who live, work or follow events in Derby and the surrounding area, reached primarily through search, social media and direct visits to a continuously updated homepage. Its launch editor's appeal for readers to shape the news list was aimed at building that audience from zero: unlike an established newspaper site, a new city title begins with no inherited readership and must persuade people in the city that another local news voice is worth their attention.
Place in the Wider Group and Availability
Within National World, DerbyWorld belonged to the Cities division, led by the cities editor-in-chief and a publisher for the division, with publishing editors overseeing groups of city titles and aligning content, audience and revenue work across regions. The group operated more than 100 newspapers and websites, including national titles in Scotland and Northern Ireland and city dailies such as the Yorkshire Evening Post and the Sheffield Star, and its city sites were supported by group specialists in sport, audience development and digital production.
In May 2025 the whole group changed hands. Media Concierge, led by Malcolm Denmark, acquired National World plc for £65.1 million, buying the shares it did not already own at 23p per share. The transaction became effective in late May 2025, National World was delisted from the London Stock Exchange, and the business was subsequently renamed Iconic Media Group, making its new owner one of the largest regional publishers in the United Kingdom.
DerbyWorld remains available at derbyworld.com, publishing Derby news, sport, events and lifestyle coverage online. Its history, from a much-publicised launch led by a single dedicated journalist to a merged editorship with its Nottingham sister site, illustrates both the ambition and the economics of the digital-only city model that National World pursued in the early 2020s.
