East Kent Mercury and Dover Mercury

East Kent Mercury

Type	Weekly newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	KM Group
Publisher	KM Group
Editor	Graham Smith
Founded	1865 (East Kent Mercury) 1998 (Dover Mercury)
Language	English
Headquarters	Deal, Kent
Circulation	11,900 (August 2009)[1]
Official website	[1]

The East Kent Mercury and Dover Mercury are weekly newspapers serving the district of Dover in Kent. The Dover Mercury covers the town of Dover, and the East Kent Mercury the towns of Deal and Sandwich. They are owned by the KM Group and are published on Thursdays.

History

The East Kent Mercury was founded in 1865^[2].

The KM Group bought the Mercury in 1980^[3] from Kent County Newspapers.

The East Kent Mercury was originally designed to serve the entire district of Dover, however in 1998 the Dover Mercury broke away from the East Kent Mercury as a paper in is own right. Both papers still feature the same editor, reporters and some of the same articles.

Along with the rest of the KM-owned papers, the Mercury series was given a design overhaul in May 2005^[4].

In February 2009 the Mercury had to change its front page about a murder trial at the last moment following a court order. The KM group was successful in overturning the court order and the story was allowed to be published on the Mercury website^[5].

Offices

Both versions of the Mercury are based at the KM Group's Deal office. Previously the Dover Mercury was based at the Dover office before this was closed by the Group.

Circulation

The combined circulation of the Mercury series (East Kent and Dover) as of the first half of 2009 is 11,900^[1]. This represented a drop of 9.8% against the same time the previous year.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Press Gazette
2. ^ KM Group - Timeline
3. ^ Over 150 years of history
4. ^ New KM is aimed at busy readers
5. ^ East Kent Mercury overturns murder trial secrecy

External links

• East Kent Mercury homepage