Free weekly paper for Swadlincote to launch next week

A former media sales manager for Northcliffe Media is to launch a new free weekly newspaper for the South Derbyshire town of Swadlincote next week on Friday 10 August.

David King, who worked in sales at Northcliffe Media for around eight years, is hoping a new free weekly title will appeal to the community in Swadlincote which has no other free weekly newspaper dedicated solely to it, he said.

"I've lived in Swadlincote for about 10 years," he told Journalism.co.uk. ""The area's expanded over the years and we've looked at the market and felt that we could launch a free newspaper."

"I've obviously got a lot of contacts within the newspaper industry, my designer and page planner is Tim Madew, who worked for numerous advertising agencies, he's got vast amounts of experience in designing newspapers.

"We always felt at some point we would be able to do something."

He said the newspaper has had "a couple of investments from silent partners" which has helped to get the paper off the starting blocks and "the cash flow going".

There will be 10,000 copies of the paper delivered to homes each week and it will look to advertising for the majority of its revenue. King said there had already been "a fantastic uptake", with a plan to split content by 60 per cent advertising, 40 per cent editorial.

"That's the key to making a successful newspaper, it's got to have good content that people want to pick up and read again, so that's what we're aiming for."

The newspaper will be edited by freelance writer Louise Birkett.

King added: "What we want it to be about is the community and the people in that community taking ownership of the newspaper and having somewhere to turn to to celebrate success or if they've got concerns about stuff that's going on around the area, to get in touch with us so we can help resolve it."

The newspaper website is currently under construction and there is also a Facebook page and Twitter account which the community can follow.

Other titles in the area include the weekly paid-for Swadlincote Times, published by Trident Midland Newspapers, and Staffordshire Newspapers' the Burton Mail and Burton Advertiser.

Correction: This article mistakenly referred to Northcliffe Media as publisher of the Swadlincote Times. This has now been corrected to Trident Midland Newspapers.

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