In the early stages of the pandemic the UK's news publishers faced an unprecedented demand for their journalism, with traffic on their websites up by as much as 50% compared to pre-crisis levels.

However, at the same time, blocklist technologies were preventing advertising from appearing alongside Coronavirus-related content, directly impacting publishers revenues. With the understandable focus of news on Coronavirus, huge swathes of newsbrands content were being effectively de-monetised.

Newsworks, the trade body for the UK's newsbrands, asked Bluestripe to help bring this issue onto the national agenda and to encourage advertisers to remove Coronavirus-related terms from their advertising blocklists.