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Nov
Stray Ferret awarded grant funding as government commits to supporting local news
The Stray Ferret has been awarded almost £60,000 by the government as part of a move to help support quality, local journalism across England and Wales.
The £6m Local News Fund has been released by the Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) to ensure the public benefits from trusted local journalism at a time when mis-information and inaccurate AI content is causing real concern.
We have been awarded £59,247 to improve our website, to encourage more subscribers and make it more affordable to local advertisers. Fifty other news organisations also received grants of up to £125,000 for infrastructure projects.
The grant will allow us to improve payment options for subscribers, make converting from a monthly subscription to an annual one easier, and create discounted entry level £1 subscription offers.
We will also be opening up empty white space on the website to more local advertisers and developing a self-loading, automated advertising system that will make marketing with us more affordable to small local, independent businesses.
Tamsin O'Brien, the founder of the Stray Ferret, said:
This is a real vote of confidence in the Stray Ferret and the news team. It is a huge relief that the government is recognising how important our work is.
Since launching the Stray Ferret we have faced a wave after wave of technological challenge — the most recent being AI scraping our content and tech billionaires ripping us off on their social media channels. It's hard to keep up as a small business.
The money will help us make subscription more affordable - with £1 trial entry points to see if people like reading us and family subscription offers.
The changes we will make mean we can reduce our advertising prices in 2027 to make us more affordable to a wider number of local businesses. We have always needed both subscriptions and advertising to survive.
I would like to thanks the DCMS - this grant is recognition that communities need a trusted news source, that local politicians need scrutiny and that it is very hard to make it work.
Media minister Ian Murray said:
For decades our local media has remained among the most trusted sources of news. But as the media landscape has become more complex, many outlets have been forced to reduce their numbers or even close. I am determined not to leave local journalism to collapse. This government knows it is critical to communities and fosters a self-confident nation that everyone feels part of.
Through the Local News Fund we are taking action to help newsrooms innovate and adapt their business models for the online world, while incentivising and encouraging the production of high-quality, trustworthy news that Britain’s towns and villages deserve and rely on.
Work on the website will be done by the Stray Ferret's developers, Hubxpert, with the new features rolled out over the next five months.
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