Leicester Mercury

The "Leicester Mercury" is a British regional newspaper, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust, for the city of Leicester and the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland.

Along with the rest of Britain's regional daily press, the Leicester Mercury has struggled in circulation terms over the past two decades. The paper has a current average circulation of 73,634 per day. [http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/010307/regional_newspaper_abcs_evening_roundup] This represents a year-on-year decline of some 5.7% [http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/010307/regional_newspaper_abcs_evening_roundup] and a drop of 47% when compared with a sale of 139,357 copies in the equivalent audit period for 1989. [http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1990/fulltext/274c3.pdf] In order to counteract the resultant fall in revenues, in 2006 the paper attempted to reduce costs by ceasing publication of its localised weekday editions for Loughborough, Hinckley, North West Leicestershire, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough. They have been replaced with two general editions, covering the east and west of Leicestershire respectively. There are however still two editions published daily to cover the city of Leicester itself. The Mercury has retained its reporting staff in each of the market towns, despite substantial editorial staff cuts in other areas.The company also closed its "Sports Mercury "edition due to declining readership, and the fact ABC rules no longer permitted the paper to include the sport paper's sales within the circulation figure for the main daily editions. [http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2005/05may/050523spor.shtml] In addition, the paper relaunched its "Sporting Blue" sports newspaper with a unique two "front" pages format to cover the city's two major sports teams; Leicester City and Leicester Tigers. [http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2005/09sep/050919blue.shtml]

The offices of the paper are on the corner of St Georges Way and Queen Street. It also has a large printing department where copies of the "The Sun", the "News of the World" and other papers such as "The Metro" are printed for circulation throughout the Midlands and Northern areas of the country.

Its current editor is Nick Carter and the managing director is Alex Leys. [http://mediapack.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/generalinfo/keypeople/?genid=1038&homeid=1033&pageno=1&subcentreid=9]

The newspaper's headquarters have undergone a complete external transformation, at a reported cost of £12.5m, and has now reopened to the general public. The new-look building is in keeping with the city's plans for an "office core" close to the Mercury's head office. [http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2006/09sep/060907lei.shtml]

In December 2006, it was reported that 79% of the Mercury's workforce had voted in favour of National Union of Journalists recognition, the paper being only the second Northcliffe Newspapers chapel to win union representation. [http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2006/12dec/061228nuj.shtml]

External links

* [http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk Leicester Mercury Website]