Oldham Advertiser Moves Back To Oldham

The Oldham Advertiser is once again based in the borough of Oldham. Its parent company, MEN Media, completed its move from offices in central Manchester to premises in Chadderton earlier this month.

The Manchester Evening News itself, its website and the 22 weekly papers published by MEN Media, are now all being produced in Chadderton. The move follows the decision by the group’s new owners Trinity Mirror to move the papers to where it already had a printing operation.

While this means the MEN itself has moved out of Manchester for the first time in its long history, the Oldham Advertiser is at least back home. The Advertiser’s old office in Oldham was closed by the paper’s previous owner, Guardian Media Group, when it centralised production of all the MEN’s weekly papers in Manchester last year.

Trinity Mirror bought MEN Media from Guardian Media Group earlier this year in a deal worth £44.8m, although most of that was down to TM releasing GMG from a printing contract. TM only actually paid £7.4m in cash for the papers.

It seems unlikely the Advertiser’s move back to the borough of Oldham will lead to the paper being delivered to homes in Saddleworth again though. Editor Ian Campbell said earlier this year: “The decision to stop delivering to homes in Saddleworth was taken for commercial reasons, not editorial ones… From an editorial point of view, we still try to provide as much Saddleworth news as we can, because we are a borough paper, and the Advertiser is on sale at outlets in Saddleworth and the rest of the Oldham area.”

You can read more from Ian Campbell in a webchat he did on the Advertiser website here.

More information about the MEN’s move to Chadderton is available from local media website How-Do here.

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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