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Regional press news - this story published 11 April 2006

Dating contest brings national audience to Somerset weekly

by holdthefrontpage staff

The Chard and Ilminster News became the nation's favourite local paper last week - thanks to a series of primetime plugs on the Radio 1 breakfast show.

The Somerset title has been following the fortunes of local 22-year-old love hopeful Gareth Smith who ended up winning the station's One Night With Laura competition.

The contest aimed to find a new boyfriend for the unlucky-in-love assistant from the Scott Mills show.

The fun started on Wednesday when Gareth said he'd been contacted by the Newsquest paper as he joked about his new celebrity status on air.

Cheeky Gareth then went on to call the paper "a bit of a leaflet".

Later in the show Scott and fellow DJ Chappers read out sections of a story about Gareth on the News's website www.chardandilminsternews.co.uk.

They even set up a link to the paper's site from the Radio 1 website and audience figures revealed that 7,600 people had visited it on the first day alone.

At the start of the show on Thursday, an e-mail from News reporter Laura Thorpe was read out on air, and there were more mentions for the paper and website on Friday as listeners sent in a record number of texts to vote for the winner of the competition.

Laura and Gareth

When Gareth got his girl at about 4.45pm, the News's website was first to report the result of the competition.

Chief reporter Alex Cameron said: "It was really good fun all week – Radio 1 gave us a real buzz by reading out stories and e-mails on air.

"I suspect Scott and Chappers were charmed by the rural-sounding name of the paper and it was a bit nerve-wracking because you never quite knew what they or Gareth were going to say.

"It was also a good learning experience about the importance of the website and hopefully allowed us to reach a younger audience.

"Gareth definitely deserved to win – he got it exactly right by not taking things too seriously."

To congratulate the happy couple, the News sent the studio a bottle of bubbly for Laura, and some cans of beer for Gareth.

By coincidence, a student on a week's work placement with the News, Richard Purdon, was in the same school year as Gareth and was able to help with some useful contacts.

The Chard and Ilminster News is a paid-for paper, published on Wednesday and has a circulation of about 8,000.

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