Sunderland Echo

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Sunderland Echo
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	Johnston Press
Publisher	Northeast Press
Editor	Rob Lawson
Founded	December 22, 1873
Political allegiance	Independent
Price	42p
Headquarters	Pennywell, Sunderland
Website: http://www.sunderlandecho.com

The Sunderland Echo is a tabloid provincial newspaper published in Sunderland, England by Northeast Press at Echo House, Pennywell. It is a two-edition daily covering Sunderland, South Tyneside and East Durham and retails at 42p.

The newspaper concentrates on local news, human interest stories and sport, including Sunderland AFC. It has a circulation of 44,198^[1] and is part of the Johnston Press group. During the football season, the Echo also publishes a Football Echo each Saturday, providing a round-up of sports news.

Contents 1 History 1.1 19th century history 1.2 The early 20th century 1.3 The 1970s 1.4 The 1980s to 1999 2 The Present Day 3 Facts and Figures 4 References

[edit] History

See also: Johnston Press

[edit] 19th century history

The first edition of the Sunderland Echo was printed on December 22, 1873, on a flat-bed press in Press Lane, Sunderland. Five hundred copies of the four-page issue were produced at noon and 4pm, and sold for a ha'penny each. Today the Echo is printed on a £12million full colour press, which was installed at its purpose-built base in Pennywell, Sunderland, in 1996. More than 44,000 tabloid copies are printed each day, which sell for 42p each.^[2]

Samuel Storey, a former teacher and future Mayor and MP of Sunderland, originally founded the paper to fill a gap in both the newspaper and political markets.^[2] Although the 100,000-strong population of Sunderland was served by two weekly newspapers - The Sunderland Times and The Sunderland Herald - there were no daily papers, and none at all reflecting the Radical views held by Storey and his partners.^[3] He promised readers in the first edition that, if things went wrong, the 'Echo would try its best to put them right'. But he added: "Always with moderation and without esteeming all those who oppose us as fools and knaves." Early copies of the Echo also included lengthy reports of Liberal meetings, and critical articles on Liberal opponents.^[2]

The Sunderland Echo was launched with an initial investment of £3,500, raised by donations of £500 each from Storey and his business partners. Those joining the venture were: Quaker banker Edward Backhouse, shipbroker and MP Edward Temperley Gourley, shipbuilder and MP Charles Palmer, newspaper editor Richard Ruddock, rope-maker Thomas Glaholm and draper Thomas Scott Turnbull. Only Ruddock, however, had any knowledge of newspapers and the money was quickly used up.^[3]

Storey later admitted: "In our childlike, simple ways, we thought this might be sufficient, but in a few months all the money was gone, so we paid in another £3,500 and that soon went too."^[4] As the prospect of any great financial success started to seem remote, so Ruddock, Gourley and Palmer withdrew from the project. Storey, however, remained dedicated to the idea, and took on their shares.^[5] A further £7,000 in investment eventually enabled the remaining partners to abandon the "wheezing flat-bed press" and, in July 1876, the Echo was moved to a new premises at 14 Bridge Street, Sunderland.

Bridge Street was to remain the home of The Echo for the next 100 years. Old buildings were demolished, new machine and composing rooms built on Wear West Street and two rotary presses installed, each capable of printing 24,000 copies an hour.^[3] These changes brought about increased circulation, but it was to take another seven years before the Echo made a profit. It was a time of intense competition, as the Sunderland Times converted from a bi-weekly to a daily paper in the same month the Echo moved to Bridge Street, while the Tories started a paper of their own, the Sunderland Daily Post. The Sunderland Times was the first to collapse, but the Post survived for the next quarter of a century, providing the Echo with an often bitter rival.^[6]

Following the deaths of two other partners, Backhouse in 1879 and Turnbull in 1880, Storey bought up their shares too, becoming the chief proprietor of the Echo. A year later, in 1881, he met Scottish-born millionaire Andrew Carnegie, and formed a sydicate with him to set up new newspapers and buy up others. Among those purchased by the pair were the Wolverhampton Express and Star, the Northern Daily Mail in Hartlepool and the Portsmouth Evening News. An attempt to buy the Shields Gazette, the country's oldest daily newspaper, failed, although that situation would change a century later. The syndicate finally broke up in 1885, with Storey retaining control of the Echo, Hampshire Telegraph, Portsmouth News and the Northern Daily Mail.^[3]

The 19th century ended on a sour note, however, as rivalry between the Echo and the Sunderland Daily Post intensified. The Silksworth Colliery strike of 1891 pitted the two papers against each other, with the Post attacking Storey for exploiting the strike for political gain. Storey sued for libel.^[2]

[edit] The early 20th century

The new century saw the Echo falling behind the times in its production methods. Established as a leading daily newspaper, it was one of the last to still be setting type by hand in 1900. In 1902, this was put right when Linotype lead-setting machines were brought in to set type mechanically.^[7] A landslide victory for Liberal and Labour followed at the 1906 General Election, which heralded a new era for the Echo too. The paper's old rival, the Sunderland Daily Post, was discontinued six months later and the Echo became the town's only daily newspaper.^[2]

World War One brought its own difficulties for the Echo. Reporters went off to battle and, after the cost of newsprint soared, the price of the Echo was forced to rise by a ha'penny - a lot of money in those days. The 50th anniversary of the paper, in 1923, was marked by a visit by Samuel Storey. He died two years later, just months after the death of his eldest son, Fred. The chairmanship of the company passed to another Samuel - Fred's elder son. In the same year, plans were laid to improve the Bridge Street premises. The work included enlarging the printing works and was completed by the end of the 1920s.^[7]

The depression of the 1930s brought mass unemployment to Sunderland, the Jarrow Crusade and talk of another war. But, for the Echo, it was a time to cement the ties made by Storey and Carnegie. A new company controlling the three titles owned by the Storey family was formed in 1934 - Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers Ltd. There was a change in name for the Echo too, when the word daily was dropped from its title of Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. The decade also, however, brought a fire which destroyed most of the bound files of archive copies of the Echo. Today, 19th century copies of the Echo can only be accessed in Sunderland at the City Centre library in Fawcett Street.^[7]

World War Two brought havoc to Wearside, with Sunderland one of the seven most heavily bombed towns on the country. Miraculously, given the heavy shelling of the North East coast and River Wear, the Echo offices and printing plant escaped undamaged. The Shields Gazette, which the company would later take over, was not so lucky. Its premises in Chapter Row, South Shields, were bombed in September 1941 and, under an emergency wartime arrangement, the paper was printed on the Echo presses. The Echo continued to be published throughout the war, despite the rationing of paper, a lack of reporters and a strict censorship of photographs.^[8] The war did, however, have one major impact on the Echo - in the form of its size. Wartime restrictions on newsprint reduced the former broadsheet to its present tabloid size and the tabloid style has been retained ever since.^[7]

[edit] The 1970s

The Bridge Street base was refurbished in the late 1960s and 1973 gave the Echo several reasons to celebrate. The first was its 100th anniversary, which was celebrated with a birthday party. Dignitaries including Sunderland AFC manager Bob Stokoe were among the guests, as well as several of his team. The chairman of Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers Ltd, Lord Buckton, announced his retirement at this time and his role was taken over by his son, the Honorable Richard Storey. News of a move from Bridge Street to Pennywell, Sunderland, was also announced during the anniversary celebrations.^[7]

Another reason to celebrate in 1973 was Sunderland AFC's 1-0 win over Leeds United in the FA Cup Final. Ian Porterfield's goal was headline news at the time, giving the Echo its all-time record circulation figure of 95,000 copies of the Sports Echo.^[9]

The year 1976 saw the Echo move from Bridge Street to a purpose-built newspaper office at Echo House, Pennywell Industrial Estate. The move brought an end to the traditional methods of printing, using hot molten metal to produce type and printing plates, and introduced computer technology. The £4million development saw the Echo become the first daily newspaper in the North East to be completely produced by photo-composition and web-offset printing. It also saw a change in the Echo's appearance, with a new shape, bolder typefaces and clearer printing. The first Echo was printed at Pennywell on April 26, 1976 and it was issue number 32,512.^[7]

Another change inspired by the move saw a return for the Football Echo man. The little cartoon character had for years indicated the match results of Sunderland with a smile, a frown or a tear, while pinned to the wall of the Bridge Street building. After several years in storage, he was returned to the wall of the Echo in 1976, where he still remains today.^[10]

[edit] The 1980s to 1999

A new style for the title of the Sunderland Echo meant a break with tradition in 1985 when, for the first time, it appeared reversed out in white on a red background, instead of the more familiar red or black lettering. The new title-piece was designed to give a greater impact to the colourful front page.^[7] It was the first in a series of changes, which included dropping Sunderland from the title in 1990, when the paper became simply The Echo. This change was reverted in 1997, when the name Sunderland Echo was brought back once again.

The 1990s also saw the Echo take a huge technological leap forward, when a £12million printing press was installed. It was used for the first time in December 1996 and was capable of printing up to 70,000 newspapers an hour. The press was part of a multi-million revamp, which also saw journalists making up full news pages on computer screens for the first time. The Echo's first online news service was also launched in 1996.^[7]

The Echo was still part of Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers until the end of the 1990s, with Northeast Press a division of that company. However, the last link to the original founder, Samuel Storey, disappeared in 1999, when Johnston Press took over the business in May that year. The Sunderland Echo is still published by Northeast Press, but Johnston Press - the nation's second largest regional publisher - now owns the whole company.^[11]

[edit] The Present Day

Today the Echo is still published each Monday to Saturday at Echo House but, with the huge rise in the popularity of the internet, the newspaper can now be read on-line too.^[12] The Echo's new-look website was launched in February 2007, while a digital editing suite was created within the office at the same time. The audio-visual equipment now allows reporters to both write about and film stories as they happen, and the articles can be published on-line in just seconds.^[13]

Statistics show that almost 80,000 people visited the Echo's website in January 2007, but this figure rose to 216,000 in January 2008. The website is updated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with stories including match reports and transfer rumours among the most popular.^[13] Slideshows, videos and podcasts are also included on the site in addition to the news of the day.

[edit] Facts and Figures

Circulation: 44,198

Readership: 110,748

Format: Daily evening tabloid

Price: 42p

Website: 1.7 million page impressions a month

Platforms: Monday: Sport and business Tuesday: Down Your Way and Portfolio (Monthly) Wednesday: Jobs, Junior Football Echo, Wearside Echoes Thursday: The Guide, motors, Wearside Echoes Friday: Property Saturday: Relax and Wearside Echoes

Reader profile: Statistics show that 47% of Echo readers are male, and 53% are female. The highest number of readers, 29%, are between the ages of 15 and 24, and the second highest age group, at 26%, is 65+. The lowest number of readers, 13%, are in the 45-54 age group.

Circulation area: The Echo reaches from Whitburn in the north, to Peterlee and Horden in the south, taking in Southwick, Ryhope, Seaton, Seaham, Houghton-le-Spring, Penshaw and Sunderland itself. The paper also reaches across to the west of the district, which includes Washington, Burnmoor, Leamside and Durham.

[edit] References