Associated Newspapers

Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington. It takes responsibility for Harmsworth Quays, the London Docklands print works plant at which it produces all of its London, South of England and South Wales editions of the national titles.

It publishes two major paid-for national newspaper titles as well as a free nationally available newspaper. Its sister group is Northcliffe Media, who take care of DMGT's regional newspaper titles. Associated Newspapers is also responsible for overseeing and developing the Group’s consumer businesses within Associated Northcliffe Digital and Teletext and for the Group’s UK newspaper printing operations.

Titles

Associated Newspapers publishes the following titles:

• Daily Mail - The main national newspaper owned by Associated. In terms of circulation, it sells more than two million, giving it one of the largest circulations of any English language daily newspaper, and the twelfth highest of any newspaper in the world.
• The Mail on Sunday - The sister paper of the Daily Mail, published weekly on Sundays since 1982.
• Metro - Metro is the UK’s only urban national newspaper. Launched in March 1999 as a free, stapled newspaper, it was distributed initially in London. But since has been published every weekday morning, around Yorkshire, the North West, the North East, the East Midlands, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff and Glasgow. Metro’s readership is 2.2 million (NRS June ‘07), with over 1.3 million copies printed.
• Loot - not a mainstream newspaper, although is available nationally. Classified directory.
• Mail Today - A 48-page compact size newspaper launched in India on 16 November 2007 that is printed in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida with a print run of 110,000 copies. Based around a subscription model, the newspaper has the same fonts and feel as the Daily Mail and was set up with investment from Associated Newspapers and editorial assistance from the Daily Mail newsroom.^[1] Indian foreign media ownership laws restrict holdings to 26 percent.

Former titles

• Evening Standard - This used to be owned by Associated, but on 21 January 2009 was bought by Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev for the price of £1.
• London Lite - free sheet that was formerly called the Standard Lite, but was re-designed to compete with News International's new free sheet thelondonpaper. It was also a free sheet and was handed out by vendors in the evening around the London Zone 1 area. The Lite closed on 13 November 2009.

Teletext

Teletext provided commercial teletext services on all the ITV channels, Channel 4 and analogue five. Other than television, its digital businesses are Teletext Holidays, This is Travel, Teletext Cars, Teletext Mobile and Villarenters.com.

Associated Northcliffe Digital

Formed by the merger of Associated New Ventures, Associated New Media and Northcliffe Electronic Publishing in May 2006, AND has 150+ websites, with a monthly reach of 30% of the UK internet population. Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND) is the digital consumer division of Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), operating the digital assets of Associated Newspapers Ltd. and Northcliffe Media, as well as key online properties including Jobsite.co.uk, the Digital property group including FindaProperty.com & Primelocation.com, online dating aggregator Allegran and Teletext Ltd.. It also publishes websites including Mail Online, for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers, Loot, variety of digital publications including This is Money, for Financial Mail on Sunday, business and financial news, and the This is London.

Controversy

On 27 April 2007, Associated Newspapers was ordered to pay undisclosed damages to Hugh Grant. Grant has sued over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles' "allegations and factual assertions are false."^[2] Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: "I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain. I'm also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called 'close friends' or 'close sources' on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist."^[3]

The publisher has also lost libel cases and paid damages to personalities such as Television presenter Thea Rogers^[4] and Oisin Fanning, former CEO of Smart Telecom.^[5]

References

External links

• Associated Newspapers website
• Associated New Media website