Left to right: Jaldeep Katwala (Bristol Cable), Daniel Jae Webb (Wiltshire 999s), Sarah Bosley (Newbury News), Oliver Rouane-Williams (Ipswich.co.uk)

Local journalism is crying out for innovation and increasingly, it is the independent publishers who are taking the brave stance to break the status quo.

Our last Newsrewired conference (13 May 2025) featured three risk takers and trailblazers, who shared their innovative revenue strategies that go beyond clogging the website with adverts.

Daniel Jae Webb has built Wiltshire 999s into a powerhouse of emergency services coverage for the south-west UK county, attracting 200k monthly visitors to the website.

But the true magic is happening on his social accounts, with 94k followers on Facebook and 124k on TikTok. The latter has generated 100m views last year alone, as local stories have a real chance to be picked up worldwide.

Webb understands that traditional video news content does not translate to TikTok, and so he had to repackagesA news content to be more natural for TikTok audiences.

"The trick to TikTok is the first five seconds," he says, noting that his strategy focuses on frontloading key information with the best shot and an engaging hook, before moving to a second clip four seconds in.

Only videos one minute or longer can be monetised on the TikTok Creator Rewards Program, and all views under five seconds do not count towards monetisation.

Unlike businesses, Webb is eligible for the programme because he joined as an independent creator. In theory, a publishing brand could do the same but it would run the risk of being delisted. Webb said Wilshire 999s may........

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