Herald Express

It was founded in 1925 as a daily, the Torbay Herald & Express through the amalgamation of the Torbay Herald—affiliated to the Plymouth-based Evening Herald owned by Sir Leicester Harmsworth, brother of Lord Northcliffe—and the slightly older Torbay Express & South Devon Echo, founded in 1921 as a sister title to the Exeter-based Express & Echo owned by Sir James Owen. It switched to weekly publication in July 2011 in light of declining circulation—losing half its editorial staff in the process—although it was one of Northcliffe’s best performing dailies. Its circulation per issue rose by almost half in the following two months.

It’s published by the South West Media Group, a branch of Northcliffe Media, formerly the Daily Mail & General Trust‘s regional and local newspaper publishing arm but now a branch of the new Local World media group created in November 2012. The editorial offices are in Torquay, though the newspaper’s printed at Northcliffe’s print works in Didcot since the Western Morning News works in Plymouth closed in February 2010. There are also local offices in Brixham and Totnes.

There are three editions:

• Bay & County – for Torquay in particular and the rest of the circulation area not served by a separate edition
• Newton & Teign – for Newton Abbot, Dawlish and Teignmouth in the north of the circulation area
• Brixham & South Hams – for the southern end of the circulation area

Its web presence was formerly through Northcliffe’s thisissouthdevon.co.uk website, which in 2011 shifted from being the Herald Express‘s website to being a general portal for the area for which the Herald Express supplied news stories. However, in early 2013 Local World announced it would be supplementing the Northcliffe portals with “publisher-branded” websites.

It comes out on Thursdays.