Ballymena Times

It’s been owned and published by Morton Newspapers, a branch of Johnston Press‘s Johnston Publishing (NI) division, since 1986. Its origins go back much further, however, to Ballymena’s first newspaper, the Ballymena Observer, founded in 1855 by the Weir family as a broadsheet. The Belfast Telegraph Group took over the Observer in the 1970s.

Meanwhile the Ballymena Telegraph had been founded in 1918 and renamed the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph in 1921. In 1966 it was relaunched as the Ballymena Times. In the early 1980s the Observer and Times amalgamated as the Ballymena Times & Ballymena Observer (with the emphasis on the Times) and made the change from broadsheet to tabloid format.

The Ballymena Times has its offices in Ballymena. There’s a local sub-edition for Antrim, the Antrim Times, which has a much smaller circulation.

It’s published on Tuesdays. An e-edition’s now also available by paid subscription.