Kilkenny Newspapers set to enter competitive Tipperary market

THE Kilkenny Newspapers group is to add to its stable of titles at the end of this month, via the launch of the Tipperary Voice newspaper.

The new title, which will officially launch on January 30, will complement the group’s existing two titles — the Kilkenny Voice and the Laois Voice — the latter of which launched last September.

The new weekly title will be aimed at the 20 to 35-year-old market. It will be published every Tuesday and will be supported by a local marketing campaign. The combined readership of the group’s three titles is expected to reach around 104,000 making it one of the biggest regional groups in the south-east. It is not known how much has been invested in launching the new title, but its owners are confident over its chances of survival in the regional marketplace.

Tipperary Voice managing director Eleanor Lahart said: “We’ll be one of the few full colour regional titles in the country and we aim to reach all points of

Co Tipperary; something which we believe isn’t the case with our competitors in the county — The Nationalist, the Nenagh Guardian and the Tipperary Star.”

The Tipperary Voice will weigh in at 40 pages each week and will — just like its two sister newspapers — feature a lot of local sports coverage, with Tipperary GAA stars set to feature as guest columnists.

John Sheils, the former managing editor of the Sunday World, is the main financial backer of Kilkenny Newspapers.

Meanwhile, the Edinburgh-headquartered Johnston Press group — which owns a number of regional newspapers here, mainly via its ownership of the Leinster Leader Group — has acquired the Scottish newspaper operations of the Archant group for £11.2 million (€17.05m).

Archant briefly bought into the Irish newspaper market through the short-lived Dublin Daily title, in which it was initially the majority shareholder but pulled out soon after. Its Scottish operations generated revenues of £6.95m (€10.5m) last year.