Bristol Post

It was founded in 1932 as the Bristol Evening Post, in response to an anti-competitive agreement between Lord Rothermere (publisher of the Bristol Evening World) and Baron Camrose (owner of the Bristol Times & Echo) under which the Camrose paper in Bristol and the Rothermere paper in Newcastle-upon-Tyne would close, leaving Bristol with just one evening paper. By 1935 the World and the Post were brought into common ownership in a new company, Bristol United Press Ltd, owned 60:40 by the Post‘s owners and Lord Rothermere respectively. The World ceased publication in 1962.

By 1998 the Daily Mail & General Trust had bought out all other shareholders in Bristol United Press, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northcliffe Media, DMGT’s regional newspaper publishing wing. Bristol United Press was renamed Bristol News & Media in 2007. Northcliffe Media in its turn became the major part of new media group Local World in late 2012.

It switched from evening to morning publication some time in the mid-2000s, but nevertheless retained the Bristol Evening Post name until April 2012, when it became simply The Post. A month later it dropped its Saturday edition, replacing it with a “bumper” Friday edition. It appears to have become the Bristol Post just a few months later.

There are two daily editions: the two-star first edition and the three-star final edition, which comes out at noon.

Cook, serial restaurateur and TV cookery programme presenter Keith Floyd worked for the Post as the editor’s assistant for a while in the early 1960s.

There’s an associated weekly freesheet, the Bristol Observer.

In 2011 the website at thisisbristol.co.uk became a local portal website to which Northcliffe’s newspapers for the area merely contributed news stories. However, in early 2013 Local World decided to launch “publisher-branded” websites for their newspapers in parallel to the portals; the Post was one of the first titles to receive a new website, at bristolpost.co.uk.