Longridge & Ribble Valley News and Advertiser
The Longridge& Ribble Valley News and Advertiser is a tabloid that is produced weekly on a Wednesday. The name has been shortend on everything to The Longridge News appart from the masthead on the paper and the masthead that appears on the website, the link for the website is http://www.longridgenews.co.uk/
It is printed by the Lancaster Evening Post Ltd, which is a branch from Johnston Press. It sold in northern Lancashire mainly in the town of Longridge in Ribble Valley as well as Chipping, Ribchester, Goosnargh and Grimsargh.
This paper is a paid sheet that costs 85p, which means that I makes money from
advertising and selling. The front page of this front cover contains 2 adverts which are for a dentist and a building and plumbing company. Again it has that column that runs down the left side that I am interested in because it shows nice community based stories and often ones that would make someone feel proud to be apart of a specific community and that is something that I think I must include on my paper.
The circulation figures for this paper are;
These figures were taken from a report that was published by ABC, the link is;
They are only selling away nearly 3000 copies per week, now based on the area that it covers and the population with in this area it isn't fantastic but it could be a lot worse.
This paper is only 48 pages long which is the shortest paper that I have looked at so far, this could be due to the fact that it is a small area that they are covering in comparison to the Lancashire Evening Post.
The front page of this paper contains a picture that is from a 'cute' story. It is of local produce being sold at the the Farmers market, the image lets the community know that lots go on and could make them feel like they need to get involved more. The story that is next to it is 'Fury at the turbine scheme' which is about the people in Chipping opposing a wind turbine being put on Collins Hill Lane. This is something that the locals are going to read and get involved with because the first thing you read when you pick up the paper is the cover story, that is the reason it has been placed there.
This paper has a section on the second page that shows you what is in this weeks paper, which is something that I haven't seen in a paper before and could potentially be really useful.
The sections that are used are;
- Opinions ............................. 6 - 7
- Reverent Reflections ............ 10
- People in the news ............... 11
- Village voice ........................ 12
- Puzzles page ........................ 32
- Class Acts ........................... 36 -37
- Sport ................................... 46 - 48
Then the colored bars read;
- The Guide pages 17-32
- Homes..... 19-30
- Classified Pages 38 - 40
- Jobs.......... pages 41
- Motors.. pages 42 - 45
The final section on this is called '@From the Web www.longridgenews.co.uk, top 5 stories this week.
- Mayoral charity gifts total £2'800
- PNE Ladies hope to be Dallas-bound
- Tower Wood's £3m upgrade
- Town gets new sergeant and inspector
I think that having this on the second page is really good idea especially if a person is looking for something specific in the paper they are able to look and see. It is also bringing part of the technological side in to the paper by taking the 5 top stories from their website and including them, although the website is on the masthead of the paper this gives people that extra reinforcement of the fact that they can go online and find a lot more news there than in the paper.
As I worked my way through reading this paper it really did just being to look more and more like the other 4 papers that I have analysed. They all have community stories that make you think 'how cute' or 'isn't is nice to have someone like that in our community' and they all have sad stories this paper has one about a girl dying in a car crash and then they all have their local sport, classifieds and property. I think after analyzing 7 papers I am really happy to say that I now fully understand what a local paper is meant to be and that I am happy to start moving on planning my product and getting my ideas together.
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