Highland News

It was founded in 1883 as The Highland News: The organ of the Highland Temperance League, but dropped the affiliation to the League in 1885. (It showed something of a shift in editorial priorities in 1963, when it was renamed the Highland News and Football Times!)

It was bought by the then owner of The Scotsman, Roy Thomson, in 1957. Another slightly older local newspaper, The Northern Chronicle, and General Advertiser for the North of Scotland, which had been founded in 1881, was acquired in 1958 and merged into the News in 1969. After just over a year as the Highland News and Northern Chronicle, the merged title became simply the Highland News. It spent eight years from 1976 to 1984 as the Inverness and Highland News before reverting to its present title.

It’s now published by Scottish Provincial Press Ltd from editorial offices in their Inverness headquarters.

It has two local sub-editions, the North Star (with which it merged businesses in 1946) and the Lochaber News. There are also two companion freesheets, the Inverness Scene and the Ross-shire Herald.

Unusually for a UK weekly, it used to come out on Saturdays. It’s now published on Thursdays, although it’s in the Inverness shops from Wednesday afternoon.