The writing must be on the wall for two failing local papers following their latest sales figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) on Friday.

The Ormskirk Advertiser now sells an average of just 700 copies a week while the figures for the Visiter are similarly depressing at just 1,397.

Both are now owned by Reach Regionals Ltd who also own the Echo which has also slumped to around 23,400 copies a night.

These stats come hard on the heels of similar figures for the Champ which now publishes just three papers a week and at times evidently has just one reporter in its newsroom...

Waypride (Champion publishers) way down in 2020 (qlocal.co.uk)

Well why would you buy a newspaper when they put all the news on their own website and social media free of charge?

Not too keen on the 'crowing' tone of this article. Looking at the main (so called) news stories on QLocal tonight - Burscough Robber Exposes himself and Idiots throw Shopping Trolley into Lake - I think you have a long way to go before you step in as Southport's major news source!

We don't even get the local "Free"papers now anyway,including the Midweek or Champion because of the lockdowns etc,and have only bought one Single copy of The Visiter in the past 15+ yrs,and that was filled with about 5% news,and the rest was 90% advertisements,the other 5% was covering Deaths and Funeral notices,and people advertising on a couple of selling pages....and I don't even know the cost to buy a Friday Visiter ? Was about 45p the last time I purchased a copy.




Still showing now on the web,the following Southport Visiter advert,from 23rd Nov 2016?...........https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/n...12216298...and this one ...https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/incoming/...about time these pages were updated.

Originally Posted by SteveandLois

We don't even get the local "Free"papers now anyway,including the Midweek or Champion because of the lockdowns etc,and have only bought one Single copy of The Visiter in the past 15+ yrs,and that was filled with about 5% news,and the rest was 90% advertisements,the other 5% was covering Deaths and Funeral notices,and people advertising on a couple of selling pages....and I don't even know the cost to buy a Friday Visiter ? Was about 45p the last time I purchased a copy.

Still showing now on the web,the following Southport Visiter advert,from 23rd Nov 2016?...........https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/n...12216298...and this one ...https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/incoming/...about time these pages were updated.

Current price of the Visiter is £1.60 for 20 pages of adverts.

I think now days the 'Local rag,' has lost a lot of its appeal in terms of local news due to the internet. Newspapers have always been and especially now 'Yesterdays news.'
It's a shame i used to enjoy reading the fridays Visiter.

Very little proper journalism in the Visiter these days. Just copied and pasted press releases or articles cobbled together from comments the general public have made on Facebook.

Originally Posted by salus.populi

Very little proper journalism in the Visiter these days. Just copied and pasted press releases or articles cobbled together from comments the general public have made on Facebook.

Similar to here and OTS!

Originally Posted by ear01

I think now days the 'Local rag,' has lost a lot of its appeal in terms of local news due to the internet. Newspapers have always been and especially now 'Yesterdays news.'
It's a shame i used to enjoy reading the fridays Visiter.

Only thing worth reading was the letters page for all the moaning NIMBYs. Now the moaners just whinge on a daily basis on Facebook.