The publisher of the Mirror, Express and Star newspapers has increased its investment in journalism as shares jumped on surging digital advertising sales.

Reach said market-beating digital revenues driven by its push to capture more customer data meant it was poised to keep investing despite pressures from the pandemic.

The company cut 550 jobs last year following a Covid-induced advertising plunge, but now employs more journalists than it did two years ago due to rebound in its performance.

Moves to launch new regional websites in Norfolk, Dorset, Darlington and Shropshire, while more than doubling its newsroom for news site MyLondon, means Reach has bolstered its editorial staff by 233 to 2,538 since 2019.

However, Reach has angered many staff with plans to maintain home working permanently for a significant proportion of its journalists.

The investment push comes as revenues and profits outstripped expectations following a 43pc jump in digital advertising sales to £69m for the 26 weeks to June 27.

Shares climbed more than 6pc to 332p in afternoon trading as revenues and pre-tax profits rose by 4pc to £302m and 27pc to £67.8m respectively.

Reach is now valued at just over £1bn - a level not hit since the financial crisis when the company was known as Trinity Mirror.

The chief executive, Jim Mullen, said its push to recruit more journalists sent a positive message about the strength of the business and sector as it battles back from the Covid crisis

"Despite the pandemic, we have a very strong supply of advertising," he added. "The more journalists we have, the more content we can write, and we can put out advertising that is more relevant to our customer base."

Mr Mullen, a former boss of betting giant Ladbrokes Coral, has been using customer data to boost digital advertising sales since he joined last August.

The drive to get more readers to register online so it can sell more targeted advertising resulted in a record 150pc jump in registered users to 6.7m year-on-year.

Reach, which owns more than 200 regional mastheads including the Manchester Evening News, said it was "confident" of hitting its 10m registrations target by the end of next year.

Print revenues were "improving" after being hit by the pandemic, the company said, but still fell by 5.2pc to £232.4m for the period.

Johnathan Barrett, a Panmure Gordon analyst, said Mr Mullen's management team was only just getting going after setting out their strategy just before the pandemic.

He added :"The management teams historically have been horrendous and not really focused on how to monetise content and get some efficiencies into it. These businesses are now on that path."