At a time when the local newspaper industry appears to be lumbering inexorably from one round of cutbacks and closures to another, Bury’s Big Spark Publishing is seemingly bucking the trend by announcing the launch of two new titles for the Greater Manchester area.
The Bolton Independent and The Bury Independent are set to hit their respective towns within the coming eight weeks.
Each newspaper will have free circulations of 10,000 and start with a monthly frequency, before building to what the publishers hope will be a fortnightly appearance in the near future.
Big Spark’s Stuart Parker told How-Do that the concept is to create “low cost-base titles” where the publisher has “low revenue expectations” that they can then look to surpass.
“It’s a simple model that we managed to introduce in Macclesfield and one which has performed better than expected,” he explained.
“(It’s) All local news, all soft news and in terms of advertising the rates are low because the cost base is too.
“It’s been very well-received in Macclesfield and that has given us the confidence to push on and take that into new areas where we see the opportunities.”
Parker revealed that one of the papers would be launching in April and one in May, although he imparted that he’d rather “play our cards close to our chest” with regard to exact dates.
Big Spark's local debut
However, he did relay that he had brought in Lynn Ashurst and Marilyn Hart to head up the sales for the individual titles and that Dave Beevers, formerly of The Daily Sport, would be running the editorial production duties.
Furthermore Parker explained that a new company had been set up to run the growing portfolio of Independent titles – he insisted there would be more to come in the near future – whereby Big Spark own 50% and Self Select Distribution control the remaining half (SSD will handle the distribution of all titles).
The company is called Investors in Publishers.
Both titles are set to be 32 pages in length and will be available to pick up at distribution points around Bury and Bolton, with a nominal amount delivered directly to selected homes.
Parker is insistent that the editorial will be positive in scope, but not simply ‘filler’ material: “The editorial has to stand up to scrutiny,” he said. “If it’s free to pick up it has to be decent or no one will pick it up the next time – you’ll lose your chance.”
The Cheshire Independent is currently distributed to around 110 drop points in its target area. Parker noted this would be “roughly the same” for both the Bolton and Bury titles.
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