TLDR News are a British independent news outlet founded in 2017 by Jack Kelly (born August 1996) and primarily hosted on YouTube and Nebula. Most of their video reports focus on political issues in the United Kingdom and abroad. The abbreviation in their name stands for too long; didn't read.[1]
The outlet are owned by Three26 Ltd of which Kelly is their CEO and sole owner.[2][† 1]
History
TLDR News were founded in April 2017 by Jack Kelly, a computer science graduate, aiming to make news engaging to young audiences. He was motivated to create the channel while studying marketing at Loughborough University.[3] Kelly observed multiple American outlets publishing infographic news on social media aimed towards the youth, and noticed almost no similar content within the United Kingdom.[4] He has credited some of their early success to their founding during the Brexit negotiations, drawing attention to them, as well as lack of competition from traditional outlets on YouTube.[5]
Rather than being a journalist, Kelly views himself as a content creator. In February 2023 he interviewed the American senator Mitch McConnell at the 59th Munich Security Conference. Under the auspices of the MSC YouTube Studio, the two discussed issues on geopolitical security and the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage.[3] That same year, in a digital summit organised by Financial Times, Kelly stated that all of their employees are between the ages of 20 and 28, and that having young staff is important for him.
A 2024 study by Reuters observed their channels' popularity with young consumers, along with those of other YouTube-based news organisations across the world such as Under the Desk News. Kelly, earlier that year, appeared in The Future of Media, Explained, a podcast by Press Gazette; there, he explained how he generates revenue and funds the company's editorial staff.[6][7]
As of August 2025 their staff consist of twelve full-time employees.[8] Their annual income of around £1 million[9] largely derives from a combination of YouTube advertisement revenue, sponsorships established by their network Nebula[10] and their magazine Too Long.[† 2][1][11]
TLDR News target audience under the age of 35. Their members research press releases, official documents, transcripts, and other records when finding topics to produce as videos.[5] Averaging ten minutes in duration, they distribute videos across their TLDR UK, TLDR Global and TLDR EU channels. The three respectively focus on diverse political topics around the United Kingdom, the world at-large and the European Union.[11] Examples include How a US-Saudi Defence Pact Could End the War in Gaza, which has received 190,000 views and nearly a thousand comments,[11] and The UK Election Results Explained, which received 1.1 million views within 48 hours following the 2024 United Kingdom general election.[12]
In addition to videos, they also publish longer-form podcasts on their channel TLDR Podcasts as well as printing Too Long, a magazine launched in November 2023.[† 3] According to Kelly, their team release approximately twenty videos across their channels every week, each filmed within two days. He has furthermore stated that the network are not monitored by any regulatory bodies such as Ofcom and that owing to this, they are liable to errors, and at possibly higher rates than mainstream outlets.[4]
Various of TLDR News's videos have been analysed by foreign news outlets.[13][14]
↑Doyle, Hannah; Graber-Lipperman, Nathan (20 March 2024). "Why Nebula is Breaking Into News". The Publish Press. Archived from the original on 29 July 2025. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
123Hengst, Cornie (17 May 2024). "Jack Kelly". Adweek. Monetizing news. Archived from the original on 13 July 2025. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
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