A Channel Islands news website has launched two free weekly print titles that will be funded entirely by advertising and staffed by four new hires.
The Bailiwick Express will print separate editions for Jersey and Guernsey, with a predicted combined circulation of 68,000.
The Guernsey edition of the title has been in print since early March while the Jersey edition is expected to go to print in May or June this year.
The freesheet is distributed to 26,000 homes in Guernsey and is set to go out to 42,000 homes in Jersey.
Bailiwick Express online started reporting on Jersey in 2014 and expanded to Guernsey four years later.
Editor James Filleul said: “Over the last few years we have built up a substantial audience for our news and classifieds website amongst islanders who want the latest local stories, set up in an authoritative and accessible way.
“It is very difficult to beat online as a format to deliver accurate and up-to-minute daily news stories.
“We soon realised that there was also an appetite for deeper features, analysis, commentary and investigations, which would all work online, but tended to lend themselves to a print format that readers could return to over the course of a week.
“As well as breaking new local stories, the paper gives readers the deeper context which sits behind the daily news stories.”
The titles’ director and co-founder Mark Jackson added: “The publication is funded entirely via advertising, there is no cover charge for the reader since it goes into every home in the island.
“That means we can offer advertisers a very powerful platform, which combines the assets of print advertising – using a high-quality paper stock and full colour throughout – with universal penetration of our market.”
The Express has said the freesheet will be printed by JPI Media printers, formerly part of Johnston Press, in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The firm will have no other involvement in the title.
Filleul told Press Gazette that two designers and sales staff would be hired for the launch of the Guernsey paper and Jersey newspapers.
Picture: Bailiwick Express
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