The editor of a newspaper that switched from daily publication to weekly publication earlier this year is to step down.
Marc Astley editor of Exeter’s Express & Echo has decided to leave the business after six years and will work his last day on 31 December.
In a statement release by Northcliffe Media today, Marc said: “Having successfully steered the Express & Echo from a daily to weekly title in the last three months I feel this is the right time for me to seek a fresh challenge.
“I leave behind a wonderful title and many friends but am happy in the knowledge that, as I leave, the business is in an exciting new phase.”
Marc joined Northcliffe Media in 1989 and has had a number of roles in the group including assistant editor of the Hull Daily Mail and deputy editor of the Nottingham Post.
Earlier this week the company said the title had posted a 46pc sales rise since its change to a weekly.
Andrew Blair, managing director of South West Media Group, said “During his six years as editor Marc has championed many worthy causes on behalf of the city and the community.
“Over the course of his tenure the title won a multitude of prestigious awards for such work. Marc has played a leading role in the successful conversion of the Express & Echo to a weekly title.”
The newspaper became the company’s third daily title to turn weekly this year following on from the Torquay Herald Express and Scunthorpe Telegraph.
It ceased as a daily title in September. A new editor is yet to be confirmed.
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‘Successfully steered a daily into a weekly’!
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In the sense that he took over a thriving, generally well-managed and edited daily newspaper six years ago and has run it into the ground to the point where it’s selling around 22,000 copies a week then I suppose, yes, he has successfully steered a daily into a weekly. Uncharacteristic honesty from the notorious Northcliffe spin machine.
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As a former employee, I thought I would be surprised it has taken Marc Astley so long to come to the conclusion it was time “to seek a fresh challenge”.
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Wouldn’t it be ironic if the person who was overlooked in favour of Marc Astley now returned to the Echo as editor? And, were that to happen, yet another demonstration that Northcliffe’s top brass couldn’t organise a drinking event in a brewery.
How long before the ad production they’re on the point outsourcing from Exeter to India returns to Blighty (after an inevitable and all-too predictable catalogue of catastrophic cock-ups)?!
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I knew Marc – he was a decent bloke – but there was no way he was ever going to stay at the Echo after it turned into a weekly. Like the entire group of papers in the South West – it has been run into the ground by several years of poor decisions. Many people (good people) have lost their jobs in the South West as a result of these poor decisions, except the very people/person who caused a lot of the problems in the first place. I wish Marc well – but I wonder where else will allow him to publish the amount of images of himself he used to have printed in the Echo – I believe on one occasion I counted four…
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Is it really a 46 per cent rise? 22,000 five days a week, plus a Saturday sale would be, say, 120,000 sales.
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Marc is a good Editor and has done a good job.
The problem in the South West is the MD.
Do you really think any Editor would want to turn a daily into a weekly – I doubt it. Northcliffe could not run the proverbial ….. in a brewery!
Yet another good guy bites the dust!
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Is it hell! It’s a 46 per cent rise in circulation in the same way a shop which had 1,000 customers every day – or 7,000 customers a week – now opens on just one day and has 1,460 customers.
Ask yourself, had situation had happened in reverse – and the Echo gone from a weekly to a daily – would Northcliffe now be boasting about a 46 per cent decline in circulation?!
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What a shame. Mark is decent guy who deserves slap on the back for all he’s done
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