A regional newspaper group is screening a series of TV ads this week as it seeks to drive subscriptions to its metered paywall.

The Newsquest-owned Herald & Times group says digital revenues increased by 19pc in the year to January 2014 after it introduced a subscription for its digital content.

Now the group is seeking to build on its success with a new campaign which began airing on Channel 4, Sky Adsmart, Classic FM Scotland and Smooth Radio in Scotland from last night.

The campaign centres on the ‘heritage and relevance’ of the news group’s 250-year history, providing an historical backdrop to its contemporary content.

The adverts will also appear online, and highlight both the news offering and specific digital products, starting with its revamped property section and new online property portal at scotlandshomes.co.uk.

Group sales and marketing director Peter Gillespie said: “We hope that the juxtaposition of historic and contemporary references will underline our unique credibility as Scotland’s quality news provider since 1783 and the days of delivering by horse and cart.

“Now we deliver breaking news via a broader range of media platforms than ever before, growing audiences in preparation for the next 250 years!

“Our existing subscribers already enjoy a seamless experience when browsing our content on multiple platforms and we want to highlight this to new audiences

who perhaps are not so aware that they can get the quality news and analysis they value very easily, both on paper and on screen from Herald and Times.”

The Herald and Times charges online users £1 for the first four weeks and £2,99 thereafter.

The site now claims the number of subscriptions for the websites exceeds the number of print subscriptions for the Herald and Sunday Herald.