The Leicester Mercury is a British regional newspaper for the city of Leicester and the neighbouring counties of Leicestershire and Rutland. The paper began in the 19th century as the Leicester Daily Mercury and later changed to its present title.[2]
The paper was founded by James Thompson, already proprietor of the Leicester Chronicle which he had merged with the Leicestershire Mercury ten years earlier.[3] The Leicester Daily Mercury was an evening paper, the first to be published in Leicester, and provided support to the Liberal Party in the general election.[4]
The first issue was published on 31 January 1874 from the paper's offices at 3 St Martin's, consisting of four pages of five columns each. The paper cost a halfpenny and was initially published daily, at 3pm and 6pm, except on Fridays, when the presses were busy with the title's sister paper, the Leicestershire Chronicle and Mercury.[5]
The front page of the very first edition of the Leicester Mercury
The Mercury had a staff of 25 - not counting the newsboys, who were said to be so unruly a policeman had to be on hand each afternoon to keep them in order - and a circulation of 5,000.[6][7]
Announcement of new offices for the Leicester Mercury, February 1878
By February 1878, rising circulation meant the Mercury had outgrown its offices, and the paper made the short move to 21, St Martin's, the former Borough Public Offices. A new press was installed, which quadrupled production capacity.[8]
In 1889, the Mercury relocated to a building in Albion Street which would be the paper's home for 77 years. It was bought for £4,900 and was fitted with a fire bell linked to the one at the fire brigade's base in Bowling Green Street. The brigade reserved a seat on their fire engine for a Mercury reporter.[9]
News appears on the front page of the Leicester Mercury for the first time, April 1, 1918
At the start of the First World War, the Mercury was an eight-page newspaper. Newsprint shortages reduced that, first to six pages then to four. On April 1, 1918, with space at a premium, the Mercury cleared the adverts from the front page, "so the news for which all are so naturally looking shall be given in the fullest possible measure."[10]
In the summer of 1966, the Mercury moved home once again, to purpose-built offices in St George Street which were designed by Leicester architects Pick Everard. By now, there were reporters in district offices in Loughborough, Coalville, Market Harborough, Melton Mowbray, Hinckley, and Rugby. By 1970, the paper boasted daily sales in excess of 180,000 - almost a quarter of the population of Leicestershire at the time.
Recent history
The Mercury celebrated its 125th anniversary in 1999 with a series of events including a royal visit to St George Street by the Duke of Edinburgh.[11] Two years later, the newspaper received the Regional Newspaper of the Year award after a redesign and relaunch.
But the newspaper sector had entered troubled times. Like all regional British papers, the Leicester Mercury has experienced declining circulation and falling advertising revenue.
The paper sold an average 69,069 copies per day in the first half of 2008, down from 73,634 per day the previous year.[12][13] This represented a 5.7% year-on-year decline[13] and a 47% drop compared to the 139,357 copies sold in the equivalent period for 1989.[14]
In 2006, the paper discontinued its localised weekday editions for Loughborough, Hinckley, North West Leicestershire, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough, replacing them with two general editions covering east and west Leicestershire. The paper maintained two daily editions for Leicester city. The Mercury retained reporting staff in each market town while reducing editorial staff in other areas through non-replacement of departing employees.
In December 2006, 79% of the Mercury's workforce voted for National Union of Journalists recognition, making the paper the second Northcliffe Newspapers chapel to secure union representation.[15]
The Leicester Mercury's headquarters in St George Street, pictured in 2013
The newspaper's headquarters underwent an external renovation in 2006, at a reported cost of £12.5m. The redesigned building aligned with Leicester's plans for an "office core" near the Mercury's head office.[16]
The paper had 97 editorial members of staff in 2007 and the newspaper was the sixth largest-selling regional title in England in 2009.[12] But between 2008/2009 and 2012, Northcliffe embarked on a series of job cuts that saw staff numbers almost halved, from 4,200 to 2,200.[17]
In 2009, Northcliffe created a number of regional 'subbing hubs', and production work for the Mercury was transferred to a hub in Nottingham that also handled work for the Nottingham Post and the Derby Telegraph, with at least 30 jobs lost at the three titles.[18] In the same year, Northcliffe's sister company Harmsworth Press closed the printing plant at the Mercury, with scores of jobs lost.[19]
The empty Mercury newsroom in 2013, after journalists moved to the second floor, along with the rest of the paper's staff
Eleven editorial jobs were lost in 2012, with the NUJ sending an open letter protesting against "wave after wave of swingeing cuts".[20] Later that year, Local World acquired the Mercury's parent company Northcliffe Media from Daily Mail and General Trust.[21] The Mercury, which had previously occupied all three floors of the St George Street building, retreated to a single floor.
Trinity Mirror - which rebranded as Reach plc in 2018.[22][23] - purchased the company in 2015. The redundancies continued. A number of staff photographers lost their jobs in 2016. Later that year, the paper's features department, which had dominated the regional press awards for a decade, was axed.[24]
In 2017, half a century after moving in to St George Street, and just a few years after the renovation of the offices, the Mercury moved out of their landmark headquarters to smaller offices in New Walk.[25]
At the start of the Covid pandemic, staff began working remotely. Reach plc announced the closure of the New Walk offices in 2021, as part of a shift to working from home for staff on titles across the country.[26] In 2022, the Mercury found a new base in the Astley Clarke building on the University of Leicester campus.[27]
Digital transformation
Transition to Digital Publishing
The Leicester Mercury first launched a website in 1996. Gateway to Leicestershire was billed as a one-stop shop for businesses, services and tourist centres and anyone wanting to find out more about the county via the internet."[28]
In April 1998, the online version of the Mercury was brought into Northcliffe's thisis network of websites. thisisleicestershire.co.uk was initially updated twice daily with local stories from the Mercury and national news and sport from the Leicester-based wire service Quicksilver Media. The site also featured reviews and a bulletin board for users.
After the acquisition of Northcliffe Media titles by Local World in 2012, the thisis network was phased out. The Mercury launched www.leicestermercury.co.uk in 2013.[29]
A further online name change followed the Trinity Mirror takeover in 2015. LeicestershireLive launched in February 2018 as part of Reach plc's regional digital expansion.[30] Print circulation decreased from approximately 25,000 in 2015 to 4,997 daily copies by 2025, while online readership grew to over 4.2 million monthly page views by 2024.[31] LeicestershireLive became the primary publishing channel for the newspaper.
As with many news websites, successive domain changes and updates to content management systems have wiped stories from the paper's online archive, including contemporaneous coverage of Leicester City's Premier League title win and the discovery and reburial of the remains of Richard III.
Multimedia Content Development
LeicestershireLive expanded to include video reports, photo galleries, and interactive content. The platform introduced a digital content management system in 2019 for faster publication and improved audience analytics.[32] During Leicester City Football Club's 2016 Premier League victory, the platform published match updates, videos, and reader reactions, recording over 500,000 page views in one day.[33] The 2015 reburial of King Richard III coverage included blogs, historical photographs, and video of the cathedral ceremony.[34] The 2023 Leicester Caribbean Carnival coverage featured photo galleries and video of the parade.[35]
Digital Distribution Channels
LeicestershireLive utilizes multiple digital channels: website, social media accounts on X (formerly Twitter) (@leicslive) and Facebook, and mobile applications. As of 2024, the @leicslive X account had 130,000 followers, and its Facebook page had approximately 215,000 followers.[36] In 2022, LeicestershireLive launched a redesigned mobile application with personalized news feeds and location-based content options.[37] The platform uses push notifications for mobile users.[38]
Organisational Structure
The digital operations of the Leicester Mercury are managed through Reach plc's Nottingham production hub, with a team of local journalists covering Leicester and Leicestershire news. In 2021, Reach plc implemented a "Live" newsroom model across its regional titles, including LeicestershireLive, introducing specialized digital roles such as audience editors, social media producers, and SEO specialists.[39] As of 2025, the LeicestershireLive editorial team consists of approximately 15 journalists, including a digital editor and multimedia content creators.[40]
Digital Business Model
LeicestershireLive uses a digital revenue strategy combining display advertising, sponsored content, and affiliate marketing. In 2023, the platform introduced "LeicestershireLive Plus," a premium content section offering exclusive articles to registered users without a paywall.[41] The site developed location-based advertising capabilities for local businesses to target specific Leicester neighborhoods and demographics.[42]
Supplements and sister papers
Sports Mercury advert in the Leicester Daily Post, January 16, 1919
The Leicester Chronicle first appeared in 1810. In 1815, it reported news of the Battle of Waterloo reaching Leicester.
It began as a broadsheet, and then became the tabloid-format Illustrated Leicester Chronicle, with an emphasis on news in pictures. The name was shorted to the Illustrated Chronicle, then reverted to The Chronicle. It ceased publication in August 1979.
The Mercury revived the name for a monthly nostalgia supplement called the Leicestershire Chronicle, which launched in the late 2000s. It was nominated for Supplement of the Year at the 2008 Regional Press Awards, but ceased publication in the early 2010s.
In 1919, the Mercury launched the Saturday evening Sports Mercury results paper, popularly known as the Buff. The Buff closed in 2005, hit by a combination of falling sales, ABC rule changes that no longer allowed the paper to include the sport paper's sales within parent papers' circulation figures[43] and the demise of the traditional kick-off time of 3pm on a Saturday. The-then Mercury editor Nick Carter said: "Quite simply, not enough people want to go out and buy a results edition after 5.30pm on Saturdays to make the Buff viable. We have little option but to shut it down."[44]
A Saturday morning sports paper, the 32-page Sporting Green, was introduced in 1991. In 1996, it changed its name to the Sporting Blue, with newsprint to match the shirt colour of Leicester City. Following the closure of the Buff, the paper relaunched the morning paper with blue and green newsprint with tête-bêche binding to emphasise support for both Leicester City and Leicester Tigers.[45]
Following audience research which showed readers wanted more entertainment and events content, the Mercury launched The Week in 1994, a what's-on guide for Leicestershire. Initially printed on Fridays it later moved to Thursday publication, and was relaunched in 2012 as Weekend, part of the Mercury's Saturday edition.
From January 2010 to September 2011, the paper published a youth supplement called The Leicester WAVE[46] on the last Wednesday of each month. People under the age of 25 wrote the content, which examined how Mercury stories affected young people.
In 2011, the Mercury revamped its Saturday paper edition, adding a new features supplement called More Mercury, and a leisure supplement, Weekend to the existing property supplement. It raised the cover price to 60p, 20p more than the weekday price. Then editor Richard Bettsworth told readers "what we do not want to do is endlessly slash costs in order to sustain our business, with the resulting loss of quality. Doing so is a downward spiral. So, More magazine and the newlook weekend Mercury, is not remotely about ripping people off or trying to make a fast buck. It is a reflection of our ongoing commitment as a newspaper and as a business to providing a robust news service to Leicestershire, both now and in the future."[47]
More Mercury was crowned Supplement of the Year at the Regional Press Awards in 2013. It closed in 2016, when the Mercury's features team were made redundant.
Cultural and Social Impact
The demographics of Leicester changed significantly in the post-war years, and the Leicester Mercury has chronicled the city's change from an industrial centre to a multicultural city.
Reporting of social issues in the decades following the war saddled the Mercury with a reputation of racism.[48] In Negotiating Boundaries in the City: Migration, Ethnicity, and Gender in Britain, Joanne Herbert says: "From 1945 to 1962 the Leicester Mercury gave tacit support to Cyril Osborne, an Enoch Powell sympathiser who campaigned relentlessly against immigration and overall, articles were framed by a consciousness of the empire in which South Africa was presented as an acceptable model."[49]
But by the 1990s and 2000s, there had been a significant switch of editorial principles. Following the unrest in Bradford and Oldham in 2001, a Leicester City Council report on community cohesion found "a great deal that is positive about the role of the press and media in Leicester. In addition, we found that the Leicester Mercury – the main daily newspaper for the City and County - consistently tried to present a ‘balanced’ view of community relations."[50] A House of Commons report in 2004, titled Social Cohesion, praised the "drive and commitment" of the Leicester Mercury in "building a socially cohesive community."[51]
The newspaper covers Leicester's diverse communities, including South Asian, African-Caribbean, and Eastern European populations, through reporting on cultural festivals, community initiatives, and social issues.[35] Its coverage includes events such as the Leicester Caribbean Carnival, Diwali celebrations, and Leicester Pride.[52] The newspaper also reports on local traditions, such as Melton Mowbray's VE Day events with Spitfire fly-pasts.[53]
The newspaper's "Tower of Horrors" series examined living conditions in Leicester's tower blocks.[54]
The Leicester Mercury's online platform, LeicestershireLive, publishes content through digital media, interactive features, and real-time reporting. The 2019 "Save Our Venues" campaign covered Leicester's independent music venues.[55]
Major stories covered by the Leicester Mercury
The Leicester Mercury's coverage of the sentencing of child murderer Colin Pitchfork
In a history spanning more than 150 years, the Leicester Mercury has reported countless events of local and national significance, including stories that made headlines around the world - the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Leicester City's 2016 Premier League victory,[56] and the discovery and reburial of the remains of King Richard III in 2015.[57]
In 2018, it reported on the drowning of six-year-old Khai Satkunarajah in the River Soar.[58] The newspaper reported on the 2024 murder of 80-year-old Bhim Kohli in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, detailing the attack, family response, court case and community reaction.[59]
Leicester Mercury, Regional Daily Newspaper of the Year. Judges praised the paper's “engaging editorial and local news that focuses very successfully on its community.”
Emily Barber, Banks’s Young Photographer of the Year
Max Ewen, Banks’s Best News Picture
Mike Sewell, joint winner Banks’s Best Queen’s Golden Jubilee Picture
Banks’s Midlands Press Photographer Awards 2002
Alistair Langham, Sports Photographer of the Year
Banks’s Midlands Press Photographer Awards 2001
Jason Senior, Sports Photographer of the Year
Newspaper Society Awards, 2001
Leicester Mercury, Regional Newspaper of the Year
Current journalists and editorial figures
Tom Mack
Tom Mack is a senior reporter at LeicestershireLive. He has reported on the 2018 Leicester explosion and the murder trial of Rania Alayed's husband in 2014. His work focuses on breaking news and community stories.
Hannah Richardson
Hannah Richardson is a Local Democracy Reporter for Leicestershire, covering Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council and the District and Borough Councils for LeicestershireLive, the BBC and other media partners.
Dylan Hayward
Dylan Hayward is a reporter for LeicestershireLive. He covers Leicestershire and frequently writes about crime, local government, education, health, environmental issues and housing. Dylan previously worked as a reporter at BirminghamLive. In 2022, he won the Reach Plc Digital Journalism Award for exceptional digital journalism.
Lee Garrett
Lee Garrett is a content editor. He reports on crime and courts for LeicestershireLive. He has covered the 2020 sentencing of Dylan West and the 2024 Bhim Kohli murder trial.
Tess Rushin
Tess is a Local Democracy Reporter, covering Leicestershire County Council and several district councils. Tess joined Leicestershire Live in 2012, working first as a communities editor and then social media manager. She previously worked in the public sector and has expertise in a variety of local government matters.
Julia Breens
Julia Breens is a local democracy reporter covering Charnwood, Hinckley and Melton district councils
↑ England, Steve (1999). Magnificent Mercury: history of a regional newspaper: the first 125 years of the Leicester Mercury. Newtown Linford, Leicester [England]: Kairos Press. ISBN978-1-871344-21-9.
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