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Weekly aims to buck trend with launch of new district edition

An independent weekly is aiming to buck the trend of newspaper mergers and closures with the launch of a new district edition.

The Rotherham Advertiser will run a separate Dearne edition from this Friday, serving the towns and villages of the Dearne Valley to the north of Rotherham.

The new edition will have a different front and back from the main Advertiser, plus early pages within the title that will be focused on news from the Dearne area.

As well as this, there will be stories from the areas that cross over, district news, entertainment and coverage of sports teams in the Dearne.

The new edition's masthead

The new edition’s masthead

Editor Andrew Mosley said: “At a time when many papers have dispensed with their district editions and some publishers might deem such a thing a bit old school, we decided on the launch because our main office is based in the Dearne Valley and we already have a strong connection with the area through our free paper the Dearne Valley Weekender.

“Plus, there is a slight crossover between the area covered by the Rotherham Advertiser and the Weekender and we also have an office on the patch in Mexborough.”

The new edition has also been given its own online domain name, www.dearneadvertiser.co.uk, which directs web users to a section for Dearne news on the Rotherham Advertiser website.

Andrew added: “The edition will provide opportunities for advertising to sell on to the change pages which, when combined with added circulation, will more than offset the cost of the page changes.

“We hope that readers and advertiser in the Dearne Valley will welcome and support the new edition, which will run alongside the Weekender, give us their thoughts, and keep up-to-date through the week through our website.

“Hopefully the launch will ensure we continue our recent upsurge in sales of the Rotherham Advertiser and ensure we have a positive result at the end of the year.”

5 comments

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  • May 9, 2016 at 9:21 am
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    I imagine JP will do all it can to chase the Advertiser of its South Yorkshire Times patch!

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  • May 9, 2016 at 10:47 am
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    JP are fortunate that so many of their papers have no good paid-for rivals. Perhaps a little competition might up their poor quality game a little.

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  • May 9, 2016 at 12:47 pm
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    Good luck to any independent competing against the bigger groups, there’s a ready made market across the country for well produced hyper local papers giving the kind of ‘parish pump’ news that the others don’t consider worthy of publishing or don’t have the level of staff to do so. Let’s hope local businesses support this latest venture.

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  • May 9, 2016 at 1:39 pm
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    Did they do that masthead artwork on ‘Word’…or ‘Paint’, do you think?

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