Dear reader,

I am writing to you today to share an update about a change we're making to our print product and what that means for you.

When The Oldham Times launched in September 2017 it followed the collapse of a borough-wide weekly newspaper. Newsquest Media Group felt it was a travesty for the borough to not have its own dedicated newspaper and accompanying website to provide honest, reliable, and trustworthy journalism.

So, the decision was made to invest heavily in a weekly print and daily digital product, despite what was clearly a volatile market. 

Fast forward five years, The Oldham Times has gone from strength to strength, with a daily newspaper launching in January 2021 to complement a website that provides the very latest news for the area around the clock. 

Earlier this year, we reported how the website achieved 170.52 per cent year-on-year online audience growth between April 2021 and April 2022.

We are now one of the fastest-growing brands in Newsquest Media Group, the owner of some of the UK’s biggest and most-respected local news brands.

Over the past five years, we’ve sold thousands upon thousands of newspapers and seen millions of people read our articles online. 

During that time, we’ve learned about the stories you want to read and invested in the title, hiring journalists to work across the borough to cover the stories that matter to you, be that holding those in power to account, reporting on the biggest criminal cases at Crown court, being at the scene of breaking news incidents or letting you know the latest on our beloved Latics.

What we’ve found over the past two years is that our audience, while still enjoying having a print product, prefers and predominantly consumes news via our website and social media channels.

In 2022, our website has seen more than 10 million page views and our social media presence is bigger than ever before. 

For those reasons, we have decided that our print edition will return to a weekly format and you’ll be able to pick up a copy every Thursday from January 5, with the last daily edition being Friday, December 30. 

Our print title returning to a weekly format isn’t a bad thing or a sign we’re not dedicated to Oldham.

On the contrary, it means we can focus on providing readers with a stronger online presence, which our research shows us they prefer, around the clock seven days a week.

It also means the newspaper you’ll buy once a week is of even higher quality, with more brilliant features and exclusives to enjoy. 

You’ll continue to be able to meet our team at the pop-up newsrooms we host in the town every month - they’ve been a real success so far and it’s been brilliant to chat with local people about the issues they want their local newspaper to look into.

We hope you’ll continue to enjoy and support the journalism we provide to the borough; our team lives and breathes Oldham and no one provides local news in the area like we do.

We can’t wait for 2023 and hope you’ll continue the journey with us.

Richard Duggan, Editor