YorkMix

About YorkMix

YorkMix is an independent local news and entertainment website serving York and North Yorkshire in England. Published at yorkmix.com, it describes itself as the area's number one locally owned news and entertainment website, and it has grown from a small digital start-up into a multimedia operation that also runs a DAB radio station, a large social media community and a creative digital agency. It is one of the most prominent examples of the UK's independent hyperlocal news sector.

History and founding

YorkMix traces its roots to YorkMix Media Ltd, a company founded in 2012 by three people with editorial backgrounds. Their aim was to combine traditional journalism and storytelling with new digital platforms, producing compelling stories for the York area at a time when the city's established print titles were contracting. The YorkMix website grew out of that venture and established itself over the following years as what the company calls the leading digital-only publication in York. Trade listings describe how, in more than nine years, YorkMix became the leading digital platform for news and information about the city, building a reputation among a relatively young, digitally savvy audience.

The founders came from journalism rather than from a corporate media background, and that editorial grounding shaped the site's identity: all news is sourced locally by its own team of journalists, and the content is produced by qualified journalists and media professionals using words, photography, audio and video.

Ownership and company structure

YorkMix is a trading name of York Sound Ltd. The business operates from York, with the radio operation giving its address as 10 Shambles, York, and the media agency listing premises at 5-6 King's Court in the city centre. The group presents itself as a true multimedia platform: a website, a radio station, live events, social platforms and a digital agency operating side by side. Its public messaging stresses that it is locally owned, independent and rooted in York, contrasting itself with national media groups that have absorbed or closed local titles.

Editorial team

The YorkMix newsroom is led by editorial director Chris Titley, himself a York journalist who previously worked as an editor at Minster FM, the city's former commercial radio station. The website states that its news is gathered locally by its own team of journalists, and the company says it employs highly respected local journalists who refresh the site throughout each day. When the group launched its radio station in 2021 it also brought in Minster FM's former news editor David Dunning, who had decided to leave Bauer Media rather than stay on after the station's rebrand, underlining how YorkMix has absorbed journalistic talent displaced by consolidation in the local media market.

Coverage areas and sections

YorkMix covers York and the wider North Yorkshire area, including the market towns of Selby, Tadcaster, Easingwold, Helmsley, Malton, Northallerton, Thirsk and Pickering, with journalists and presenters based across the area. Its editorial mix spans breaking local news alongside entertainment and lifestyle content. Media database listings describe sections including What's On, Things to Do, Opinion, Sport, Food and Drink, Shopping, Life and Business, plus a full guide to what is on in the city. The site's own advertising materials say that if something happens in York and North Yorkshire, readers will hear about it first on YorkMix, and that everything it does starts from being at the centre of community life.

Audience and reach

YorkMix's published media pack, based on platform analytics averaged over the twelve months from May 2023 to 2024, states that yorkmix.com reaches 500,000 people each month and records around 2,000,000 hits per month. It reports that 67.2 percent of its audience across social platforms is female, and it cites Ofcom's Localness in the Media research from December 2023, which found that 89 percent of people obtain their local news from an online platform. A separate trade listing puts its monthly readership at 360,000 unique users, while its "Things to Do In York" Facebook community has more than 35,000 members, giving the brand a large and active social footprint beyond the website itself.

YorkMix Radio

In January 2021 YorkMix expanded into broadcasting with the launch of YorkMix Radio on DAB digital radio. The station was created in direct response to the loss of Minster FM, which Bauer Media absorbed into its national Greatest Hits Radio brand in September 2020, a move that cost around 160 jobs across the country including a number of journalism roles. YorkMix teamed up with former Minster FM presenters including Ben Fry, Laura Castle, Victoria Charles, Tim Lichfield, Elisa Hilton and Paul Spence to crowdfund a replacement local station, raising almost £22,000, more than twice the target needed to cover transmission costs for six months.

The station tested as XmasMix Radio playing Christmas music in late 2020 before its full launch on 4 January 2021, opening with "Chasing Rainbows" by York band Shed Seven. It broadcasts an adult contemporary music format on the MuxCo North Yorkshire DAB multiplex, alongside local news and features, with the YorkMix news team contributing in-depth conversations during the day. Rather than building one large city-centre studio, the station set up smaller broadcast centres in York and Selby and equipped presenters to broadcast from home studios in Tadcaster, Malton and Northallerton. It is also available online, on smart speakers and via smartphone apps.

Business model and YorkMix+

YorkMix is a commercial operation funded principally through advertising and marketing services, with its media pack offering measurable multimedia campaigns to local businesses. Alongside advertising it runs YorkMix+, a paid subscription giving supporters benefits such as the removal of national advertising from pages, a free coffee each month from participating retailers, a weekly news roundup newsletter, priority access to journalists for story tip-offs and advance notice of popular half-price voucher sales. Subscriptions were offered at £4.49 a month or £39.99 a year. The site stresses that its core news remains free to access, and that reader support helps cover the cost of trusted local journalism, noting that it receives no government funding or licence fee income. It also offers free on-air and online coverage opportunities for charities and community groups.

The wider YorkMix Media agency arm provides digital services including website design and management, social media management, photography and video production, email newsletters and blog writing. Its listed clients have included TalkTalk, the National Trust, BBC History Magazine, York College, Make It York, Explore York Libraries and Archives and the National Centre for Early Music.

Awards and recognition

YorkMix's journalism has been recognised within the regional media industry. At the 2016 O2 Media Awards for Yorkshire and the Humber, the website was named Best Website, and it was highly commended in the Online Media Award category. It is listed as a member of the Independent Community News Network, the UK's representative body for the independent community news sector. The launch of YorkMix Radio was covered as a notable industry story by the trade press, with one of the former Minster FM presenters describing YorkMix as "natural partners" who shared the presenters' love of York and who had established their own business in similar circumstances after the print news industry forced change upon them.

Outlook

YorkMix presents itself as York's number one multimedia news and entertainment platform, built on local ownership and a team of local journalists. Having expanded from a website into radio, social communities and agency services, its model shows how an independent hyperlocal publisher can diversify its revenue while keeping its journalism free at the point of use. Its continued growth will depend on sustaining advertising income and reader subscriptions in a local market where national groups have withdrawn, and on keeping the trust of an audience that its own research shows increasingly turns to online platforms for local news.