While many daily newspapers are struggling to hold on to circulation, one former West Country editor is enjoying his place in the sun – with his paper recording a 60 per cent increase in sales over the last five years.

John Marquis, managing editor of The Tribune in Nassau, Bahamas, has seen the broadsheet morning’s sales rocket by an average of 12 per cent a year since 1999, outperforming all major dailies in North America.

Its performance has been described as “unprecedented” by a leading analyst – especially as it is in direct competition with its 160-year-old rival, the Nassau Guardian, which has traditionally dominated the morning market in the Bahamas.

Jeff Kohler, who advises 25 American leading dailies, said: “Even with big promotional budgets, most metropolitan dailies in the US record only infinitesimal increases. In Nassau, they have a great story to tell because they are doing something extraordinary.”

The Tribune’s rise began when it switched from evening to morning publication in summer 1998.

When John Marquis arrived in early 1999 he introduced several new sections, which gave the paper more focus.

Since then The Tribune’s climb has been unstoppable, when in the same period the Nassau Guardian has lost nearly half its circulation.

John, (59), former editor of Packet Newspapers in Cornwall, said: “It is particularly heartening that our success is based on genuine rising sales, not promotional gimmicks.

“We have hammered the Guardian mercilessly over the last five years. Having once dominated the market, the Guardian is now being outsold on five out of six days a week – and we’re still climbing.”

He is a former Provincial Journalist of the Year and has been in newspapers for 42 years, having started on the Northampton Chronicle and Echo in 1961.

He also worked for the Nottingham Evening Post before enjoying his first stint in the Bahamas during the 1960s, when he was political reporter on both the Nassau Guardian and The Tribune.

In 1969, he joined Reuters at their Fleet Street headquarters and later worked for seven years as London sports editor and boxing correspondent for Thomson Regional Newspapers, covering several Muhammad Ali fights. He was also assistant editor on the now defunct Evening Post-Echo at Hemel Hempstead and has also worked as a magazine and book publisher.

Sharing The Tribune’s success are three other British journalists working in the Bahamas. They are business editor Neil Hartnell, a Cornishman, and two Scots – main section editor Jason Donald and sports editor Nuala Naughton.

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