I'm beginning to wonder whether the Daily Mail and General Trust really wants to go on owning regional newspapers after all. After failing to sell off its Northcliffe Newspapers division, it managed to find a buyer for its Aberdeen papers. That was a substantial sale, of course, but now comes the disposal of a really small part of its dwindling empire, the Wellington Weekly News, to Sir Ray Tindle's newspaper group.
Yet the Wellington paper is hardly a stand-alone title. It is part of Northcliffe's substantial west country division, which includes the Bath Chronicle, the Frome & Somerset Standard series, the Yeovil-based Western Gazette series, and the Western Daily Press in Bristol. The Weekly News, with a circulation of 4,120, may be seen as small fry or, in the language of business, a "non-core" title. But that hardly implies a commitment to newspaper publishing. In fact, it suggests that virtually any paper in the Northcliffe group is now in play as long as someone has the right money. It is clearly prepared to sell off its empire piece by piece.
I must stress that the Wellington Weekly News, which has a history stretching back to 1860, has not fallen into bad hands. Just the opposite. Tindle, who has 200 locals, knows how to nurture small papers. As Northcliffe's Jacquie Dean said, this "much loved local newspaper" will be in safe hands. But why has a much-loved paper been allowed to slip from Northcliffe's once-safe hands?
