Welcome to your daily Press Gazette media briefing on Wednesday, 20 August, brought to you in association with Admiral - the Visitor Relationship Company.

Find out here how CBS Sports worked with Admiral to use real-time journey shaping to engage over 18 million visitors for major live events like the Super Bowl and March Madness.

US-based The Flyover has become one of the country's fastest-growing publishers offering local news to what it sees as an ignored constituency of readers.

Its name comes from a pejorative term for the vast middle bit of America between the coasts.

The Flyover provides state-level newsletters and a nationwide email edition.

The whole business looks refreshingly human, with a personal touch to the emails and revenue coming from direct-sold advertising slots.

The business model is based on making more from selling advertising than the company spends on marketing to bring in new subscribers.

So far the investment appears to be paying off. Two years after launch The Flyover has a 25-strong team and $5m plus in annual revenue. Full story here.

Today we also answer a question which has been niggling me: what is the biggest circulation newspaper in the world? For all the wonders of AI-enhanced search, Google returns terrible out of date answers when you ask it this question.

I've done some digging to come up with what I think is a robust new top ten list of the world's biggest-selling print newspapers.

The top title has a daily circulation and readership that (though in decline) is still staggeringly big.

A Press Gazette study tour to Japan is overdue, I think!

The full line-up of speakers for the 2025 Future of Media Technology Conference at the London Hilton Bankside on 11 September is now live.

This event is purely focused around discussing and showcasing new ways to make journalism pay in the digital age. Full details here.

From our sponsor

How CBS Sports used Admiral’s real-time journey shaping to boost ad revenue

Admiral, the Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) company, empowers leading publishers to guide audiences toward deeper engagement and higher revenue outcomes—with no dev lift required.

Case Study: CBS Sports

For high-stakes events like the NFL Playoffs and March Madness, CBS Sports used Admiral Convert to deploy over ten hyper-targeted campaigns, engaging 18.5 million-plus visitors in real-time.

Highlights:

• 20 million-plus impressions during live events

• CTRs up to 33.33%

• eCPM exceeding $100

With countdown timers, DMA-targeted messaging, and real-time optimisation, CBS Sports turned live events into high-converting engagement moments.

Read the Full Case Study

On Press Gazette

Email-based publisher The Flyover has 25 full-time staff two years after launch

The Flyover publishes 51 editions a week via email, covering state and national news in the US.