Newsquest
Encyclopedia
Newsquest is the third largest publisher of regional and local newspaper
s in the United Kingdom
with 300 titles in its portfolio. Newsquest is based in Weybridge
, Surrey
and employs a total of more than 5,500 people across the UK. It also has a specialist arm, which publishes both commercial and business to business (B2B) titles, such as Insurance Times, The Strad, and Boxing News
.
private equity partnership Kohlberg Kravis Roberts financed a £210 million management buy-out of the Reed Regional Newspapers group of British papers from Reed Elsevier
.
In 1996 Newsquest swapped its Yorkshire titles for Johnston Press’s
Bury
, Lancashire
area titles and £9.25 million, sold some of its titles in the English Midlands to Midland Independent Newspapers and bought the Westminster Press local newspapers group for £12.3 million from Pearson
, owner of Penguin Books and the Financial Times
, resulting in Newsquest doubling in size. The next year it floated on the London Stock Exchange realising a market capitalisation of £500 million. In 1998, Newsquest added the Sussex-based Contact-a-Car, the London Property Weekly titles, two titles in the North West of England, and three Review Group titles in Hertfordshire.
In 1999, The US
Gannett media group's newly-formed UK subsidiary paid £922 million (about US $1.5 billion) for Newsquest and took on the company’s debt. In 2000, Gannett paid £525 million for Southampton
-based News Communications and Media’s South Coast dailies and weeklies – and its Southernprint magazine printing division – to add to Newsquest’s portfolio. It also picked up the regional newspapers business – outside Manchester – of the Guardian Media Group
, a takeover that the Competition Commission cleared as there was 'no overlap, in the companies' circulation areas.
In 2001, Newsquest bought Surrey and Sussex Publishing and Horley Publishing, publishers of Gatwick Life and Horley Life and the Dimbleby Newspaper Group’s nine Greater London weeklies, including the Richmond & Twickenham Times for a reported £8 million.
In 2003, Gannett UK paid £216 million for the Scottish Media Group
’s three newspapers – Glasgow
’s Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times– 11 specialist consumer and business-to-business magazines and an online advertising and content business. The competition Commission again inquired into this purchase but cleared it all the same. In 2005, Newsquest’s Exchange Enterprises division paid £50.25 million for Exchange & Mart and Auto Exchange from United Advertising Publications after the small ads weeklies' publisher's US
parent, United Business Media
, decided to concentrate on its 'core activities'. Newsquest also owns the formerly named Brentford Chiswick and Isleworth Times
, which is now known as the Hounslow and Brentford Times.
Gannett had on 11 December 2006 said it had no plans to sell Newsquest, contradicting a story in the previous day's Sunday Express that claimed the media giant is carrying out a company review with the Credit Suisse
investment bank, and could sell Newsquest for up to £1.5bn. Gannett had replied by saying: "There is no truth in the report. Newsquest is a valuable part of the Gannett company."
In early July 2007, Newsquest’s staff pension scheme was ‘£65 million in deficit’, a company memo to its employees had said, media analyst Roy Greenslade wrote in his 2 July 2007 blog at The Guardian
’s website. Members of the company’s workforce, management could, the company had said, increase their contributions (from 6% to 10%) to keep the same final salary scheme; they could pay in less for an inferior version; they could opt for a ‘money purchase’ scheme; or ‘ditch’ their pension altogether.
The company’s US
parent Gannett had on 18 June reported that revenues from its newspapers and broadcasting had fallen – but, the US press release said: ‘Newsquest experienced higher national advertising revenue’. It was “hardly a picture of a company suffering from poor health”, commented Greenslade.
MP for Perth and North Perthshire Pete Wishart that Newsquest had given it misleading evidence while it was considering whether company should be permitted to take over titles from SMG, the UK’s National Union of Journalists
reported on 10 July 2007. Wishart had written to the commission in June 2007 to express his concern about standards and job losses at the newspapers. Union members were holding a ballot over whether they should strike over five redundancies on the Glasgow
Evening News, one of the papers bought from SMG.
On 25 July 2007, journalists at Newsquest’s former-SMG titles – Glasgow
Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times – held a 24-hour strike to protest against compulsory redundancies and cuts of up to £3 million.
Newsquest’s Glasgow NUJ members went on strike again on 3 and 4 August 2007 hampering the Sunday Herald’s planned re-launch. Successful union action had already led to the reinstatement of the deputy Father (leader) of the Evening Times Chapel (office branch) Gordon Thomson on 31 July, while a work-to-rule had caused the cancellation of digital training planned for the following week.
“Newsquest’s purchase of the Herald group was backed by assurances that they would maintain standards and not cut editorial budgets,” the NUJ quoted Cathy Peattie
Scottish Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk East as saying. “The Competition Commission may have decided that too much time has passed for it to be able to do anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that Newsquest gave assurances via the commission to the people of Scotland, and those assurances now look worthless,” she added. She was not surprised staff had walked out.
“They have a long list of causes for dissatisfaction - redundancies, staffing shortages, poor working conditions and high stress levels. This is damaging the health of the workers and the health of the paper. Rather than discuss the problems, Newsquest has derecognised the NUJ,” Peattie continued.
Peattie had tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament expressing concerns about the Herald newspapers. It said Newsquest’s programme of job cuts would harm the papers' content and put their staffs at risk and added: ‘The Parliament notes that these developments are taking place despite increased profits and assurances given by Newsquest to the Competition Commission, and believes that this is to the detriment of the long term future of the titles and the Scottish newspaper industry.’
Newsquest on 8 August 2007 started offering users of its Greater London
titles' websites downloadable supermarket coupons, which could be redeemed against at supermarkets including Tesco
, Asda
, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons
for money off a range of goods from cranberry products to canned pet food. Newsquest’s regional digital and display manager Eddie Embleton was "very excited by the prospects that this new initiative presents...An online and offline campaign has been prepared to drive our readers and users directly to the appropriate coupon galleries, with the print element specifically aimed at driving traffic to our website and turning our readers into users’. The company hoped to ‘launch the gallery across the whole of the Newsquest network", the press release added.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
with 300 titles in its portfolio. Newsquest is based in Weybridge
Weybridge
Weybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
and employs a total of more than 5,500 people across the UK. It also has a specialist arm, which publishes both commercial and business to business (B2B) titles, such as Insurance Times, The Strad, and Boxing News
Boxing News
Boxing News is the longest-running boxing magazine still in publication, dating back to 1909. Owned by Newsquest Specialist Media .-History:Boxing News was founded in 1909 by original editor John Murray as, simply, Boxing...
.
History
Newsquest was founded in 1995 when USUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
private equity partnership Kohlberg Kravis Roberts financed a £210 million management buy-out of the Reed Regional Newspapers group of British papers from Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier is a publisher and information provider operating in the science, medical, legal, risk and business sectors. It is listed on several of the world's major stock exchanges. It is a FTSE 100 and FT500 Global company...
.
In 1996 Newsquest swapped its Yorkshire titles for Johnston Press’s
Johnston Press
Johnston Press plc is a newspaper publishing company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its flagship titles are The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post; it also operates many other newspapers around the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man. It is the second-largest publisher...
Bury
Bury
Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
area titles and £9.25 million, sold some of its titles in the English Midlands to Midland Independent Newspapers and bought the Westminster Press local newspapers group for £12.3 million from Pearson
Pearson PLC
Pearson plc is a global media and education company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is both the largest education company and the largest book publisher in the world, with consumer imprints including Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and Ladybird...
, owner of Penguin Books and the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, resulting in Newsquest doubling in size. The next year it floated on the London Stock Exchange realising a market capitalisation of £500 million. In 1998, Newsquest added the Sussex-based Contact-a-Car, the London Property Weekly titles, two titles in the North West of England, and three Review Group titles in Hertfordshire.
In 1999, The US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Gannett media group's newly-formed UK subsidiary paid £922 million (about US $1.5 billion) for Newsquest and took on the company’s debt. In 2000, Gannett paid £525 million for Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
-based News Communications and Media’s South Coast dailies and weeklies – and its Southernprint magazine printing division – to add to Newsquest’s portfolio. It also picked up the regional newspapers business – outside Manchester – of the Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group plc is a company of the United Kingdom owning various mass media operations including The Guardian and The Observer. The Group is owned by the Scott Trust. It was founded as the Manchester Guardian Ltd in 1907 when C. P. Scott bought the Manchester Guardian from the estate of...
, a takeover that the Competition Commission cleared as there was 'no overlap, in the companies' circulation areas.
In 2001, Newsquest bought Surrey and Sussex Publishing and Horley Publishing, publishers of Gatwick Life and Horley Life and the Dimbleby Newspaper Group’s nine Greater London weeklies, including the Richmond & Twickenham Times for a reported £8 million.
In 2003, Gannett UK paid £216 million for the Scottish Media Group
SMG plc
STV Group plc is a Scottish media company. It is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index. Originally formed as Scottish Television, it changed its name to Scottish Media Group in 1996 when it acquired Caledonian Publishing, owners of Glasgow-based newspapers The Herald and Evening Times...
’s three newspapers – Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
’s Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times– 11 specialist consumer and business-to-business magazines and an online advertising and content business. The competition Commission again inquired into this purchase but cleared it all the same. In 2005, Newsquest’s Exchange Enterprises division paid £50.25 million for Exchange & Mart and Auto Exchange from United Advertising Publications after the small ads weeklies' publisher's US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
parent, United Business Media
United Business Media
UBM plc is a magazine publisher, news distributor and events organiser providing business information services principally to the technology, healthcare, media, automotive and financial services industries...
, decided to concentrate on its 'core activities'. Newsquest also owns the formerly named Brentford Chiswick and Isleworth Times
Brentford Chiswick and Isleworth Times
Formerly and historically titled the Brentford, Chiswick and Isleworth Times the Hounslow and Brentford Times is a weekly local newspaper covering news and events across the whole London Borough of Hounslow in London, United Kingdom.-Publication:It is published in tabloid format every Friday...
, which is now known as the Hounslow and Brentford Times.
Gannett had on 11 December 2006 said it had no plans to sell Newsquest, contradicting a story in the previous day's Sunday Express that claimed the media giant is carrying out a company review with the Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse
The Credit Suisse Group AG is a Swiss multinational financial services company headquartered in Zurich, with more than 250 branches in Switzerland and operations in more than 50 countries.-History:...
investment bank, and could sell Newsquest for up to £1.5bn. Gannett had replied by saying: "There is no truth in the report. Newsquest is a valuable part of the Gannett company."
In early July 2007, Newsquest’s staff pension scheme was ‘£65 million in deficit’, a company memo to its employees had said, media analyst Roy Greenslade wrote in his 2 July 2007 blog at The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
’s website. Members of the company’s workforce, management could, the company had said, increase their contributions (from 6% to 10%) to keep the same final salary scheme; they could pay in less for an inferior version; they could opt for a ‘money purchase’ scheme; or ‘ditch’ their pension altogether.
The company’s US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
parent Gannett had on 18 June reported that revenues from its newspapers and broadcasting had fallen – but, the US press release said: ‘Newsquest experienced higher national advertising revenue’. It was “hardly a picture of a company suffering from poor health”, commented Greenslade.
'Misleading evidence'
The UK’s Competition Commission was investigating allegations made by SNPScottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
MP for Perth and North Perthshire Pete Wishart that Newsquest had given it misleading evidence while it was considering whether company should be permitted to take over titles from SMG, the UK’s National Union of Journalists
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists .-Structure:...
reported on 10 July 2007. Wishart had written to the commission in June 2007 to express his concern about standards and job losses at the newspapers. Union members were holding a ballot over whether they should strike over five redundancies on the Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
Evening News, one of the papers bought from SMG.
On 25 July 2007, journalists at Newsquest’s former-SMG titles – Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times – held a 24-hour strike to protest against compulsory redundancies and cuts of up to £3 million.
Newsquest’s Glasgow NUJ members went on strike again on 3 and 4 August 2007 hampering the Sunday Herald’s planned re-launch. Successful union action had already led to the reinstatement of the deputy Father (leader) of the Evening Times Chapel (office branch) Gordon Thomson on 31 July, while a work-to-rule had caused the cancellation of digital training planned for the following week.
“Newsquest’s purchase of the Herald group was backed by assurances that they would maintain standards and not cut editorial budgets,” the NUJ quoted Cathy Peattie
Cathy Peattie
Cathy Peattie is a Scottish Labour politician and was the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk East from 1999 to 2011. In the Scottish Parliament general election, 2011, she was defeated by Angus MacDonald of the Scottish National Party.-External links:* new site for 2011 election*...
Scottish Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk East as saying. “The Competition Commission may have decided that too much time has passed for it to be able to do anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that Newsquest gave assurances via the commission to the people of Scotland, and those assurances now look worthless,” she added. She was not surprised staff had walked out.
“They have a long list of causes for dissatisfaction - redundancies, staffing shortages, poor working conditions and high stress levels. This is damaging the health of the workers and the health of the paper. Rather than discuss the problems, Newsquest has derecognised the NUJ,” Peattie continued.
Peattie had tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament expressing concerns about the Herald newspapers. It said Newsquest’s programme of job cuts would harm the papers' content and put their staffs at risk and added: ‘The Parliament notes that these developments are taking place despite increased profits and assurances given by Newsquest to the Competition Commission, and believes that this is to the detriment of the long term future of the titles and the Scottish newspaper industry.’
Newsquest on 8 August 2007 started offering users of its Greater London
Greater London
Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...
titles' websites downloadable supermarket coupons, which could be redeemed against at supermarkets including Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
, Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...
, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons
Morrisons
Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The company is usually referred to and is branded as Morrisons formerly Morrison's, and it is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies...
for money off a range of goods from cranberry products to canned pet food. Newsquest’s regional digital and display manager Eddie Embleton was "very excited by the prospects that this new initiative presents...An online and offline campaign has been prepared to drive our readers and users directly to the appropriate coupon galleries, with the print element specifically aimed at driving traffic to our website and turning our readers into users’. The company hoped to ‘launch the gallery across the whole of the Newsquest network", the press release added.