A hyperlocal publisher has closed a newspaper launched six months ago – citing a “crowded marketplace for advertisers” for the decision.
The Local Voice Network has announced it is ceasing publication of Portishead Voice, which was launched in October 2018 to serve the Somerset town.
HTFP understands that the decision by Local Voice, which runs a number of titles focused largely in the Bristol area, to concentrate its resources on other areas of the business was also a factor.
The company has also recently launched a new title to serve the Kingswood area of Bristol.
Portishead Voice’s closure was announced in a post on its Facebook page attributed jointly to publisher Rich Coulter, editor Becky Day and Ruth Drury, who works in advertising sales.
The announcement states: “It is with regret and sadness that the publishers of Portishead Voice have taken the decision to cease publishing of our monthly news magazine.
“We have been thrilled with the response to the magazine and we hope that we have provided a balanced, informative and interesting series of articles over the past months.
“Our plans were to develop and expand but unfortunately, Portishead is a crowded marketplace for advertisers and with past loyalties running deep, we found our model of a freely distributed magazine hard to sustain. Over the past few months we had raised our circulation to cover the majority of the town and we were planning full coverage within a year.
“We have met some wonderful people – Portishead is a great place to live and work – and we are sad to leave but leave we must and we wish every resident the best. We would also like to thank the advertisers who supported us in the past few months – it is truly appreciated.”
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I’m a huge advocate of new community news papers and how they are replacing the traditional groups in providing the best grass roots news and advertising service to communities but this closure, after just six months, smacks of not doing enough research before launching.
It’s all very well producing a hyper local publication but none can survive without sustainable ad revenues or with journalists alone on board,in today’s climate of much competition in print and online,a proper commercial feasibility study needs to have happened to determine whether there was enough year round potential to fund the operation, I doubt this happened here otherwise they would not nave been caught out by such a basic lack of awareness of the local situation and lack of sustainable advertising potential
Sad news but a stark warning to those considering launching publications to do your homework and to avoid an avoidable own goal such as appears to be the case here.
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Sorry but it sounds very naive to launch and close a paper within six months and for the reasons given.
Surely the owners and person responsible for advertising must have looked at all the competition and ascertained whether there was room commercially to add another item into the media mix and be able to fund it before committing to launching their title?
The market hasn’t changed since October so the warning signs must have been plain to see, particularly by anyone with commercial experience, and launching in the hardest period which includes the dead post Xmas months was also, sorry to say, very ill thought out.
Good luck to those involved and to all new independent publishers making a real go of things across the uk and in areas lost by the big groups, just please do your homework first
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To be blunt, a monthly handout can hardly be considered a ‘newspaper’ can it?
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Usual insufferable know-alls on this page … I wonder what your achievements have been?
Perhaps they got it wrong here … but they seem to have got a lot right with 18 publications running happily in the past several years.
Sign of a good business is understanding when something hasn’t worked and taking decisive action. It’s sad we are so ready to jump on things when they don’t work out.
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“Sign of a good business is understanding when something hasn’t worked and taking decisive action”
A better approach is deciding before launching whether something is feasible and commercially viable or not thus preventing closure a few months down the line
My achievements OnceASub?
In recent years working on a variety of free and paid for papers, online publications, local magazines,monthly community news glossies and involved in working closely with various business and commercial groups including start ups.
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“A better approach is deciding before launching whether something is feasible and commercially viable or not thus preventing closure a few months down the line.”
If you have that level of foresight and have never got anything wrong then you should be in the Branson league, not working in ‘community news glossies’!!!
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Foresight; no
Feasibility study = Research:yes
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