Sir Ray Tindle: Local Newspapers Have Unique Connection With Local Communities

Sir Ray Tindle has highlighted the importance of local news to people’s lives and the unique connection local papers have with readers which enables advertisers to communicate effectively with local communities.  

In a speech in Taunton this afternoon, Sir Ray said that demand remained extremely high for local newspapers’ coverage of local courts and council meetings in addition to their coverage of local events such as grass roots sports.

Speaking to Tindle Newspapers senior management, Sir Ray said: “Remember, most of your readers, most of the residents of your area, will never be on television, will probably never appear in a national newspaper but they are quite likely to read about themselves or their family or friends in their local newspaper. 

“They’ll have been watching the town’s football team.  They’ll have been to the local fete.  Their children will be in the schools’ nativity play or the school cricket team or they’ll win a prize or a scholarship or they’ll go on a school or church or club outing.  Or they’ll be in a carol concert and they’ll be in the local paper.”

Sir Ray continued: “I know these local events will rarely if ever make national TV or radio but local papers carry them and that’s what makes us very popular with the readers quite apart from our news of council meetings and police courts and so on. 

“Local traders are well aware if their customers read their local paper, as most of them do in much greater numbers than can be claimed by any individual competitor for our advertisement space.  Local traders sell their goods almost entirely to local residents and it’s the local paper that reaches them without excess cost or waste.” 

Sir Ray spoke about some of the challenges facing the industry as a whole, and said: “The nationals and regional dailies are fighting back hard with their excellent campaign to win over the big advertisers and their splendid efforts to increase circulation.”

He added that “the vast majority of weeklies, approaching 1,000, are very much alive and will be for years to come.”