Britishnewspaperarchive Avis 

Through some administrative glitch, my annual renewal had not been processed two months ago. I found the telephone number to ring on the website Contact link. It was answered promptly by Joanna who acknowledged what had happened, advised me to pay for renewal there and then, and offered me some discount so that I wasn't being charged more than previously. Excellent service and very pleasant manner. Thank you!

Ruined a perfectly good site! The new layout is not user friendly at all and takes more time to find my saved bookmarks; which took me long enough to find as I thought they'd been wiped! You can't put them in alphabetical order so I have to scroll through loads of pages! Not Happy :(
Please change back

Many thanks to Sophie for prompt, courteous and helpful support in resolving payment issue.

The new site is a shambles and completely un-user friendly. Did the British Newspaper Archive actually consult anyone who uses the site before making the change? All I can see is a lot of fluff, extra clicks and complexity, where the old site - whilst not perfect - was clear and easy to navigate. My suspicion is that they based the design on integration with Find My Past, but failed to appreciate that many many many people who aren't genealogists - including me - use it for other forms of research.

They need to provide an option to revert to the old site or go back to it wholesale.

What a dreadful mistake it was, changing a tried and trusted format for this ghastly replacement. Search facility rubbish, all saved records gone and can't be viewed without paying again. Are you having a laugh? What set of crooks! And no - I won't be renewing.

I have already complained about the new website design. As a long-standing customer I am increasingly frustrated by the complicated and inefficient searching process that Advanced Search entails. Printing off results can be done but it too is a lengthy process. Unlike other complainers I always printed off my searches in the 'old' system which was much more straightforward. I am unsure what market BNA now is trying to attract - if it is serious long-term researchers then you will lose their interest. I think giving the new format even one star is hugely generous.

I recently paid one year subscription to this newspper archive. It is nigh impossible to search for anything. The search engine is complicated and it takes ages to search and nothing relevant comes up. Some editions of newspapers aree not on there, years wotth! i.e. Tottenham Weekly Herald 1976 to 1980. Hornsey Journal 1976 plus, and some sixties editions of the Croydon Advertiser.

I was one of the early complainers about the new but not improved website, the former I had used for years. Since then I have tried using it almost on a daily basis, trying to get some method that works. Unfortunately, unless some major changes are made or reverting to the old model, you will lose customers and if it is a case of "they will get used to it in time"....people will not and it will become a last resort site rather than a go to.

So disappointed with the changes to the website.
Prior to the July 2026 update I would have given 5 stars but now I only award 1.
I’m glad I’m due to renew my membership soon because I won’t bother as this site is no use to me.

The search facility was excellent prior to the update but it is dire now and it is hard to find articles that should be easily narrowed down.

Please revert to the original otherwise you will lose a lot of customers in the next 12 months.

I’m horrified at what has been done to this site. I found it so useful and efficient for local history research and paid for an annual subscription for years. It’s now like working in blinkers wearing thick gloves under officious restrictions. You can’t download a legible full page any more or get up a range of local newspapers for a set period. Is Findmypast trying to attact an American market or what? I won’t be renewing my subscription.

I am an academic researcher and long-time subscriber to this site and the recent changes have been horrendous to navigate, making vital discoveries I had found now untraceable and the site so much more difficult and clunky to use in every way. I use this for my job and the amount of anxiety these changes have caused me is unbelievable. Horrible site to use now.

A few months ago my review would have been five stars. I loved the BNA and found searching and filtering articles easy and effective. I’m fortunate to be towards the end of writing a historical novel, the research based almost entirely on contemporaneous theatre publications. Now if I go to my saved searches I see only the name of the paper and the date I accessed it - or the occasional now jumbled associated comment. I pity anyone starting their research now. They will have nothing like the pleasurable journey I experienced and are unlikely to come across much of the material the old system made easy to discover. Did no one think to road test this first?

BNA's new presentation is nothing less than a shambles; This is a good example of 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. the version that many of we subscibers have used for years, was clean, easily understood and versatile. What we have thrust upon us (for no apparent reason) is a model that management ought recognize, would be best to be binned immediately before further damage is done to the brand BNA.
Edit 21/8/2026; I have read the replies of other reviewers and must agree with comments made and the probable likelihood that comment from BNA is AI generated. There is no recognition of the damage being done or urgent response needed; just a review in time. Being an annual subscriber whose subscription is automatically renewed, I feel that I am now receiving an inferior product from that to which I originally signed up. Surely, this must come under the Trades Description Act. Unlike BNA’s reaction, I can now say I have reviewed BNA’s response and have decided to suspend renewal of my subscription (and advise others to do similar); BNA is in the fortunate position of taking money in advance and so will not notice until the bank does not fulfil their request to renew. I suggest the shortfalls be made up by the individual(s) who signed-off the poor product forced upon us.

I had been using what had been a wonderful site of information daily. Constantly checking "Today's". Uploads. Not any more. I subscribed regularly and for several years had annual subscriptions. Due to the upgrades and the ruination of the site I will no longer be a visitor to the site. So disappointed as it also helped in my genealogy searches. It's no longer part of my daily routine. What a shame. Thank goodness I didn't have an annual subscription this year.

After subscribing to the British Newspaper Archive since its inception and using it intensively for my research over many years I am profoundly shocked by the 'Upgrade' and introduction of the new website. The functionality, ease of access and user friendliness of the site have been effectively destroyed.
DC Thomson and the British Library should be ashamed and, hopefully, working fast to repair the damage and restore what we enjoyed previously. Why were any of the changes deemed to be necessary? Was a trial/pilot undertaken with existing users?

The new website layout actually makes using the site impossible. Things that took seconds to do and organise are now made very complex and confusing. All the notes attached to old saved stories are gone. A new 'workspace' option added - not sure what that is for or who asked for it.

This has gone from being my favourite place to spend a few hours to dreading having to use it. It's awful.

Bring back the old layout. Save your money and go elsewhere.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars
What a mess!!
What a mess!!! I loved browsing for hours, as a fun pastime. I just wonder what level of critical assessment and market research went into the launch of the new format. I don't believe that BNA will find a single user who feels that the new system is either an improvement or a pleasure to use. I can only imagine the level of frustration felt by those subscribers who use BNA for work related research.
I hope BNA will have a rethink, apologise and replace

The new system/website with Find my past is just awful. It is far from an improvement. I cant fathom why this change was agreed upon and signed off, as it makes no sense. I also had credits that have disappeared.

The new website, unfortunately, is extremely frustrating. Having been a paid subscriber for years I won't be renewing my subscription.

I have been saving articles relevant to various research projects for years and now I cannot search them and the notes that I wrote on them to describe what each saved article was about have all gone. Unbelievable.

I'm sure there were very valid reasons for trying to "upgrade" the website but this has obviously gone very wrong.

As a family historian, I'm going to have to remove the British Newspaper Archive from my list of recommended subscriptions for people - and it used to be top of the list.

Extremely disappointing.

This used to be such a brilliant source for historians, both amateur and professional. I have done years of research using the once brilliant site, paying my subscription each month. Now, all that is gone. My 100’s of saved folders are just a list, there is no way to search them, you have to click on each folder to see what it is as it only tells you the date you saved it, not the date of the newspaper.
The search facility is now so hard to use and despite me knowing that an article is in a certain newspaper, it doesn’t find it anymore. It is exactly the same as Find my Past and what is the point in having 2 subscriptions?
They have not consulted with their paying customers at all. They did not warn us that they were remove our years and years of research, or making it unusable. Had I known, I would have downloaded all my folders and cancelled my subscription.
Do not take out a subscription for this site until they listen to their subscribers and revert it back to how it was.