Neepawa’s two weekly newspapers merging

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This article was published 30/09/2017 (3172 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEEPAWA — The publisher of the largest community newspaper in southwestern Manitoba is merging two of his publications.

The Neepawa Banner, the title owner/publisher Ken Waddell and his wife Christine launched in 1989, will combine with The Neepawa Press, a 121-year-old printed institution in the community.

Ken Waddell said it wasn’t a forgone conclusion the two entities would combine when he purchased The Neepawa Press in 2015 from B.C.-based Glacier Media Group.

“The biggest change in the last two years is the almost complete disappearance of any government advertising, federal and provincial,” Waddell said. “There hasn’t been a decline in advertising locally, there’s been a bit of an increase, but without the government ads in both papers, or either paper,” it didn’t help, he said, alluding to the smaller paper of the two, the Press, taking the largest financial hit.

“I always said, ‘As long as I made money, I would keep it going,’” Waddell said. “But once it stopped making money, then the combination into the one paper had to take place.”

The consolidated entity will be known as The Neepawa Banner & Press, and maintain features from both publications. The first edition will publish on Oct. 6.

The paper will maintain the wider circulation enjoyed by the Banner. The paper distributed 8,300 copies to a geographical area ranging from Ste. Rose to Carberry and Westbourne to Erickson.

The Press printed 3,200 copies and restricted its readership to a smaller area around Neepawa.

When announcing the 2015 acquisition of the Press, editorials described the two newspapers as separate publications that would cater to different advertising needs, based on the day it published and the paper’s circulation.

In practice, Waddell said most advertisers wanted the larger circulation the Banner provided.

He said he’s satisfied to have operated the Press for two years, and to have the archived history of the century-old paper under their roof.

“There’s a lot of tradition there, a lot of news coverage that took place, and it’s going to carry on,” he said.

Waddell remains bullish on the newspaper industry, but said papers are better positioned for success when they focus on relevant local news and maintain local ownership.

“You have to have a good newspaper in your community, somewhere to provide basic, true-fact news for your area,” he said. “Unless you have the newspaper, you don’t have that source.”

The Waddells also own the Rivers Banner and the online portal mywestman.ca.

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