Northcliffe Media

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]

Northcliffe Media Ltd
TypePrivate
IndustryNew media
DefunctNovember 21, 2015 (2015-11-21)
SuccessorLocal World
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
OwnerDaily Mail and General Trust
WebsiteArchived 9 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine

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 two-and-a-half 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, 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.

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.
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