Torquay Herald Express

Last updated

Herald Express
Type Weekly newspaper
FormatTabloid/compact
Owner(s) Reach plc
Founded13 July 1925 (1925-07-13)
Circulation 4,194(as of 2022) [1]
Website devonlive.com

The Herald Express is a local newspaper covering the Torbay area of the United Kingdom. It is published by Reach plc. It serves a wide surrounding area of coastal and inland communities in South Devon, which attracts millions of tourists each year to swell its 100,000-plus resident population.

Contents

History

The Herald Express was born out of the rivalry between two evening papers, each of which produced local editions for Torbay—an area which includes Torquay, Paignton and Brixham—and first appeared in its own right as a title on Monday, 13 July 1925, when the two decided to amalgamate.

Devon's premier publishing centres had always been at Plymouth, where Sir Leicester Harmsworth, brother of newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe, controlled the city's Evening Herald, and at Exeter, where Sir James Owen had the county's other evening title, the Express and Echo .

First into Torquay had been the Exeter-sponsored Torbay Express and South Devon Echo in 1921, followed shortly afterwards by the Plymouth-controlled Torbay Herald. The latter was produced in Braddons Hill Road West, the former nearby in Union Street.

The competition was intense and Torquay of the day did not have the commercial output to support two evening titles. Eventually the papers merged, Harmsworth having acquired his rival, to become the Torbay Herald and Express, and printed in Braddons Hill Road West. Later this was simplified to Herald Express.

It has had the distinction of being based in Fleet Street, for the front entrance and office of the Braddons Hill works was nearby in Torquay's main shopping thoroughfare.

It was not until July 1980 that the paper moved to custom-built headquarters on the northern edge of the town. Throughout the years since its founding, the Herald Express has been closely linked with its Exeter sister paper within the Western Times Company and the Northcliffe Group. However, in 1991 it became a new and independent operating company in its own right within Northcliffe as Herald Express Publications Ltd. During its lifetime, it has had nine editors, including the present incumbent, Jim Parker.

In March 1996, Northcliffe Newspapers Group restructured its publishing interests in the South West of England. This involved the appointment of a new regional management team to direct the operations of Northcliffe's daily newspaper centres at Plymouth, Exeter and Torquay.

Following many changes in the structure of the Torquay operation, the Herald Express printing press was closed in November 1996. The head office in Barton Hill Road retained its existing editorial, advertising and newspaper sales departments, but from then on the paper was to be printed at the Western Morning News building in Plymouth.

In June 2011 it was announced that it would become a weekly publication from Thursday 21 July 2011 with the loss of around 16 members (half) of the editorial staff. [2]

In 2012, Local World acquired owner Northcliffe Media from Daily Mail and General Trust. [3] Local World was subsequently acquired by Trinity Mirror which rebranded as Reach plc in 2018.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torquay</span> Town in Devon, England

Torquay is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies 18 miles (29 km) south of the county town of Exeter and 28 miles (45 km) east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay and across from the fishing port of Brixham.

Reach plc is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of Britain's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The Sunday People, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday as well as the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail and the magazine OK! Since purchasing Local World, it has gained 83 print publications. Reach plc's headquarters are at Canary Wharf in London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Radio Devon</span> Radio station in Plymouth

BBC Radio Devon is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Devon.

The South Wales Evening Post is a tabloid daily newspaper distributed in the South West region of Wales. The paper has three daily editions – Swansea; Neath and Port Talbot; and Carmarthenshire – and is published by Media Wales, part of the Reach plc group. The current editor is Jonathan Roberts. As the name suggests, it had previously been an evening paper, but later became a morning daily.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Torquay</span>

The History of Torquay, a town in Torbay, on the south coast of the county of Devon, England, starts some 450,000 years ago with early human artefacts found in Kents Cavern. There is little evidence of any permanent occupation at Torquay until the eleventh century records in the Domesday Book, though it is known that visits were made by Roman soldiers and there was a small Saxon settlement called 'Torre'. In 1196 Torre Abbey was founded here, which by the time of its dissolution in 1539, had become the richest Premonstratensian Monastery in England. The buildings were bought by Sir George Cary in 1662. The Cary family and the Briwere family between them owned much of the land now occupied by Torquay. By the 19th century, most of the land was owned by three families: the Carys, the Palks, and the Mallocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stagecoach South West</span>

Stagecoach South West is a bus operator providing services in Devon and East Cornwall along with coach services to Bristol. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach.

<i>Western Morning News</i> English regional newspaper

The Western Morning News is a daily regional newspaper founded in 1860, and covering the West Country including Devon, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Somerset and Dorset in the South West of England.

<i>Lincolnshire Echo</i> Weekly British regional newspaper for Lincolnshire

The Lincolnshire Echo is a weekly British regional newspaper for Lincolnshire, whose first edition was on Tuesday 31 January 1893, and is published every Thursday. It is owned by Reach PLC and it is distributed throughout the county.

<i>The Herald</i> (Plymouth) British newspaper

The Herald is a Reach plc newspaper serving Plymouth. Its website and social media were rebranded as Plymouth Live in 2018.

<i>Bristol Post</i> British newspaper

The Bristol Post is a city/regional five-day-a-week newspaper covering news in the city of Bristol, including stories from the whole of Greater Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It was titled the Bristol Evening Post until April 2012. The website was relaunched as BristolLive in April 2018. It is owned by Reach PLC, formerly known as Trinity Mirror.

Cornwall & Devon Media is the Westcountry division of Reach.

Local World Holdings Ltd. was a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK that published around 100 print titles and more than 70 websites. It was formed in 2012 by David Montgomery, a former chief executive of Trinity Mirror, to buy the Daily Mail and General Trust's Northcliffe Media business, and the Yattendon Group's Iliffe newspaper group.

<i>Grimsby Telegraph</i>

The Grimsby Telegraph is a daily British regional newspaper for the town of Grimsby and the surrounding area that makes up North East Lincolnshire including the rural towns of Market Rasen and Louth. The main area for the paper's distribution is in or around Grimsby and Cleethorpes. It is published six days a week with a free sister paper being published once per week.

The Express & Echo is a paid-for newspaper for Exeter and the surrounding area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heart Exeter and Heart Torbay</span> Former British Independent Local Radio stations

Heart Exeter and Torbay were part of the Heart Network of commercial local radio stations operated by Global Radio in the United Kingdom. The stations were launched on 23 March 2009, and replaced Gemini FM, which was the previous commercial radio station for the Exeter and Torbay areas in Devon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawkmoor Hospital</span> Hospital in England

Hawkmoor Hospital, originally known as Hawkmoor County Sanatorium, was a specialist hospital near Bovey Tracey in Devon, England, founded in 1913 as a pulmonary tuberculosis sanatorium as part of a network of such facilities, instigated by the Public Health 1912. From 1948, the hospital catered for patients with a range of chest ailments, as well as chest surgery, and mental disability patients. From 1973, the facility dealt solely with mental health problems until its closure in 1987.

Northcliffe Media was a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK and Central and Eastern Europe. In 2012 the company was sold by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) to a newly formed company, Local World, which also bought Iliffe News and Media from the Yattendon Group. In October 2015, Trinity Mirror, later Reach plc, bought Local World.

The Torquay Open was grass court tennis event founded in 1879. In 1881 it was known as the Torquay Lawn Tennis Tournmament. that was held at the Winter Garden, Torquay, Devon, England. It continued under that name until after World War II when it was known as the Torquay Open In 1971 the tobacco company Rothmans International took over sponsorship of the event and it was branded as the Rothmans Torquay Tournament until 1974 when their sponsorship ended.

References

  1. "Torquay - Herald Express". Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK). 8 February 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  2. "Herald Express to become weekly title". Torquay Herald Express. 17 June 2011. Archived from the original on 1 March 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  3. "Daily Mail sells regional newspapers to Local World". BBC News. 21 November 2012.