Northcliffe Media

Last updated

Northcliffe Media Ltd
Company typePrivate
Industry New media
DefunctNovember 21, 2015 (2015-11-21)
Successor Local World
Headquarters,
Owner Daily Mail and General Trust
Website Archived 9 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine

Northcliffe Media (formerly Northcliffe Newspapers Group) 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, [1] which also bought Iliffe News and Media from the Yattendon Group. In October 2015, Trinity Mirror, later Reach plc, bought Local World. [2]

Contents

It operated from over 30 publishing centres, and also had 18 daily titles. The main publishing centres for the newspapers were South West Wales Publications in Swansea, Bristol Print Centre in Bristol, Derby Print Centre in Derby, Rockwell Universal in Grimsby, Leicester Print Centre in Leicester, Plymouth Print Centre in Plymouth and Stoke Print Centre in Stoke on Trent. All publishing centres except Swansea and Grimsby have since closed.

Northcliffe ran a print and publishing service to businesses and organisations across the UK and Ireland. It also operated a retail division with 67 outlets and had Hungarian newspaper interests. [3] It also claimed to be one of the top two publishers, in terms of circulation, in Slovakia after 2+12 years in the country, and to have invested £22 million in the Eastern European market between 2004 and 2007. [4] They owned Avizo, the leading daily classified newspaper in Slovakia, City Express was acquired, including two fortnightly titles, Auto Burza, a motors classified product and Burza Nehnutel’nosti, a property magazine.

History

In November 2005, the DMGT announced that it wanted to sell Northcliffe Newspapers, at the time worth over £1.5bn. [5] It came after figures according to Ofcom announced that Northcliffe only has 16% of the regional market, compared to Trinity's 20%, Newsquest's 18% and 15% for Johnston. This was cancelled after they could not find an offer for the group as a whole. On 6 July 2007, the company bought 26 regional titles from Trinity Mirror plc for the sum of £64.15 million. The group said it had bought three of Trinity Mirror's local divisions, East Surrey and Sussex Newspapers, Kent Regional Newspapers and Blackmore Vale Publishing, included the Croydon Advertiser , Blackmore Vale magazine, Medway News and the Kingston Informer . [6] The sale is expected to boost Northcliffe's circulation by 872,000 copies per week. [7]

The company's name was changed to Northcliffe Media from Northcliffe Newspaper Group in 2007.

In July 2011, it was announced that Northcliffe Media intended to sell nine of its titles to the KM Group. The newspapers involved include the Dover Express , East Kent Gazette , Folkestone Herald , Herne Bay and Whitstable Times , Isle of Thanet Gazette , Medway News and Thanet Times . km Group has referred the matter of the acquisition of the titles to the Office of Fair Trading. [8]

In November 2012 DMGT sold Northcliffe Media to Local World. [9] In October 2015, Trinity Mirror announced that it was acquiring the whole of Local News.

A&N International Media

A&N International Media, formerly Northcliffe International, was the Central and Eastern European multimedia enterprise arm of Northcliffe Media. It had newspapers throughout Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, with their biggest market in Hungary. They also had website interests in Croatia, owning four shopping, home and car websites as well as in Slovakia and Hungary.

The international arm began in 1989, when the Northcliffe Newspaper Group acquired Kisalföld , the largest regional newspaper in Hungary, serving the north-western county of Győr-Sopron. The group later acquired Délmagyarország , the largest daily title in the south-east of the country, and the English-language weekly newspaper, The Budapest Sun . Northcliffe also invested significantly in new headquarters and printing plants in both Győr and Szeged.

The total Eastern European business had revenues of £35 million per year and annualised profits of around £6 million. The arm had 801 overseas workers in 2006, [10] but after the arrival in the Croatian market in March 2007, this exceeded 1,000. The chairman of the European arm was Vivian Baring and the director was István Szammer.

Hungary

In Hungary Kisalföld , a morning newspaper based in Győr, had the highest circulation of any regional title in the country, selling an average 78,000 copies Monday to Saturday. It also published a daily edition for the town of Sopron. Northcliffe International also published Délmagyarország , Hungary's oldest regional daily newspaper and the largest selling title in the south-eastern region. In addition it published Délvilág for Csongrád county. Other publications included classified titles Magyar Bazár and Irányár. Websites included Használtautó, a car finder website (similar to that of DMGT's Loot Newspaper and website in Britain), Ingatlanbazár, a house finder website (similar to that of DMGT's Primelocation website in the UK) and Workania, a work finder website (yet again similar to Jobsite in the UK owned by DMGT).

Slovakia and Bulgaria

In 2004 Northcliffe International acquired Avizo , Slovakia's biggest daily advertising magazine which included nearly 8,000 advertisements daily. Other acquisitions included City Express , a free weekly paper distributing 160,000 copies in and around Bratislava, the country's leading recruitment website Profesia.sk, the leading motors website Autovia.sk, and the quality daily newspaper Pravda, the oldest national title in Slovakia with a circulation of 78,000. Northcliffe's Slovakian business, in which it invested a total of £23 million, employed over 300 people and generates revenues of £12 million.

Other newspapers owned by the Slovakian arm of the group included:

In Bulgaria, Northcliffe International owned the daily Bulgarian newspaper Pozvanete , established in 1992. Pozvanete is the leading paid-for classified advertising newspaper in the region with copies sold in Sofia, Varna and Plovdiv. The title employed more than 200 people.

Croatia and Romania

Northcliffe International entered the Croatian market in March 2007 with the purchase of 60 per cent of the country's leading recruitment website Mojposao.hr. The site controls 85 per cent of the country's online jobs market. Northcliffe invested almost £12 million on digital assets in Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia. Other websites included 4kotaca.net, centarnekretnina.net and kupiprodaj.net.

In Romania, Northcliffe International's activities extended further with the acquisition of the classified title Anunţ A-Z in Bucharest. Anunţ A-Z was established in 1990 as a bi-weekly classified advertising periodical and sold 12,000 copies per issue mainly in Bucharest. The title also has a dedicated website.

Titles

Northcliffe Media claimed that over 3,272,302 people had visited all of its local sites for all the newspapers,[ when? ] with the most hit site being the Derbyshire. Northcliffe's core business was the production, printing and distribution of Regional Newspapers alongside its online 'thisis' network.

Subsidiaries

Some former subsidiaries of the group included Northcliffe Retail and a 25% shareholding in the website Fish4. Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND) was the online arm of the Northcliffe Media Ltd, one of the largest and most successful regional newspaper publishers in the UK. Its daily titles had a combined sale of more than one million copies per day and its paid-for weeklies sold in excess of 490,000 copies. Each week the Group also distributed 2.6 million copies of its free newspapers.

Related Research Articles

<i>Metro</i> (British newspaper) British tabloid newspaper

Metro is the United Kingdom's highest-circulation freesheet tabloid newspaper. It is published in tabloid format by DMG Media. The newspaper is distributed from Monday to Friday mornings on public places in areas of England, Wales and Scotland. Copies are also handed out to pedestrians.

Reach plc is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK'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 the One Canada Square in London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media company, the owner of the Daily Mail and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chair and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office is located in Northcliffe House in Kensington, London. In January 2022, DMGT delisted from the London Stock Exchange following a successful offer for DMGT by Rothermere Continuation Limited.

<i>Hull Daily Mail</i> Newspaper for Kingston upon Hull, England

The Hull Daily Mail is an English regional daily newspaper for Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The Hull Daily Mail has been circulated in various guises since 1885. A second edition, the East Riding Mail, covers East Yorkshire outside the city of Hull. The paper publishes everyday except Sunday.

<i>Surrey Advertiser</i>

The Surrey Advertiser is a newspaper for Surrey, England which was established in 1864 and gradually evolved into the Surrey Advertiser Group of seven more localised titles. Guardian Media Group sold the Group to Trinity Mirror in 2010. The owners are now known as Reach plc. The head office is in Stoke Mill, Guildford.

The Medway News was a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent, England. Established in 1855 as the Military Chronicle and Naval Spectator, it relaunched as the Chatham News and Rochester, Strood, Brompton & Gillingham Advertiser on Saturday 9 July 1859. The first issue cost 1d. The final issue was published on 8 December 2011.

<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>Western Daily Press</i> Local newspaper published in Bristol

The Western Daily Press is a regional newspaper covering parts of South West England, mainly Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset as well as the metropolitan areas of Bath and North East Somerset and the Bristol area. It is published Monday to Saturday in Bristol, UK. The majority of its readers are in rural areas, small towns and villages throughout the region and the paper's coverage of rural, agricultural and countryside issues is particularly strong. It also has a good record in picking up quirky and bizarre stories which would otherwise not be publicized. Politically it tends to be conservative although its coverage of the UK ban on fox hunting was neutral, recognizing that even in rural areas people are very divided on the issue.

<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.

<i>Bath Chronicle</i>

The Bath Chronicle is a weekly newspaper, first published under various titles before 1760 in Bath, England. Prior to September 2007, it was published daily. The Bath Chronicle serves Bath, northern Somerset and west Wiltshire.

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.

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.

<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 Kent and Sussex Courier is an English regional newspaper, published in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. The paper was the result of an amalgamation of a number of Kent and East Sussex local newspapers, and hence has always been published in at least two editions, one of which covered the western parts of Kent while the other covered the eastern part of East Sussex.

<i>Burton Mail</i>

The Burton Mail is a British daily newspaper published each weekday and on Saturdays. It covers the East Staffordshire, South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire areas. In the period December 2010 to June 2011, it had an average daily circulation of 12,198. The only paid-for title in Burton-on-Trent, the Mail has been established for more than a century, and prints news from the town and its surrounding area.

A&N International Media, formerly Northcliffe International, was the Central and Eastern European multimedia enterprise arm of Daily Mail and General Trust. It had newspapers throughout Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, with their biggest market in Hungary. They also had website interests in Croatia, owning four shopping, home and car websites as well as in Slovakia and Hungary.

References

  1. Plunkett, John (21 November 2012). "DMGT sells regionals to Local World for £52.5m plus stake in new venture". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  2. Sweney, Mark (28 October 2015). "Trinity Mirror confirms £220m Local World deal". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  3. "Details of Hungarian titles". Northcliffe Media. 2007. Archived from the original on 8 January 2008. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
  4. "Big news in Slovakia as DMGT becomes a big player". Daily Mail and General Trust plc. 2007. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 6 October 2007.
  5. Tryhorn, Chris (30 November 2005). "Who will buy Northcliffe?". London: Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
  6. Brook, Stephen (6 July 2007). "Daily Mail group buys Trinity Mirror regional titles". London: Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
  7. Brook, Stephen (6 July 2007). "Northcliffe Media buys 26 titles from Trinity Mirror". London: The Editors Weblog. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
  8. "Folkestone Herald and Dover Express owners agree to sell newspaper titles to Kent Messenger". Hawkinge Gazette. Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  9. Daily Mail sells regional newspapers to Local World BBC News, 21 November 2012
  10. "Annual report and accounts, Northcliffe Newspapers". Daily Mail and General Trust. 2006. Archived from the original on 24 October 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2007.