The Reading Chronicle

It was founded in 1825 as a broadsheet called the Berkshire Chronicle. In 1912 it went daily and renamed itself accordingly the Berkshire Daily Chronicle, but reverted to the former title and weekly publication two years later. It added a Country edition in 1947. In 1961 both the Main and Country editions became the Reading & Berkshire Chronicle; then in 1965 simply the Reading Chronicle.

It’s been published by the Berkshire Media Group (itself a subsidiary of the Romanes Media Group, formerly Clyde & Forth Press), since they bought it from Trinity Mirror in July 2007. It made the switch to tabloid format in March 2009.

There’s a local sub-edition for the south-eastern suburbs of Reading, the Woodley & Earley Chronicle. There’s also an associated freesheet tabloid, the Reading Midweek; and for a couple of years in the late 2000s there was also a Polish-language edition, the Reading Kronika.

Although it’s principally a paid-for title, about a sixth of the print run is distributed free through supermarket pickup points.

The website underwent a revamp in 2013. Although content is still free to the user, readers are asked to submit answers to two survey questions a month (provided by Google) in order to access it.

The Chronicle comes out on Thursdays.