Metro News's farewell
My old paper Metro News was delivered for the last time today.
In fact, it is continuing but it will be dramatically different. It's going to become a local paper just for the Trafford area. It will be able to concentrate on a more logical circulation area.
I began working for the paper in 1995, when it was edited by Robert Ridley, the journalist who's taught me most in my career.
When I joined, as a sub-editor, its editorial content was completely separate from the Manchester Evening News's. But many people thought it was a rehashed MEN, which annoyed us. In those days, it was all about competition, not co-operation.
Things changed in 1997. It was integrated into the MEN and it became a hybrid. About half of its content was rehashed MEN (so our readers' perception became right), the rest was original. We started co-operating a lot more.
I became its deputy editor, under John Jeffay. And then, in 2002, I became its editor.
We decided to change things. I introduced a new look and a features section, Metromagazine.
The problem with Metro News was that its circulation area was massive. It went into more than 300,000 homes - from Urmston to Marple. It covered south and east Manchester, Stockport, Trafford and the Wilmslow area. It had bonkers geography. And, understandably, readers didn't really understand it.
Dr Harold Shipman didn't feature simply because he lived in Hyde, outside our area. But he lived a lot closer to many of our readers than other people we did include.
There was no specific community of interest for our weird circulation area, but like most local papers, we wanted to keep "local", even though "local" was very odd.
That's one of the reasons I decided to add the magazine section. It was about what unites the people in the area: entertainment, what's on, shopping, human interest features. I'm delighted to say that section's going to continue in the new Trafford Metro News and the group's other free papers in our area: The Stockport Times, South Manchester Reporter and Wilmslow Express. And my column's going to be included in it. Hooray!
I left Metro News just over a year ago when I joined Channel M. Tim Oliver took over as editor and did a fine job.
But the whole media business is going through massive change, thanks in large part to the internet. There have been big changes in newspapers and there will be many more after Metro News's transformation.
The truth is that Metro News was always a bit of an anomaly. It was too big to be local, too small to be regional. Its identity suffered as a result, although a lot of readers told me they loved the paper.
The good news is that they'll still have a local weekly from the MEN Medai stable - plus Metromagazine inside it.
And our group will give the people of Trafford their own dedicated newspaper now. So, good luck to the staff creating that. It'll be an exciting time for them.
As one era ends, another begins.