There are some 900 weekly and daily newspapers in the UK – and the Cambrian News is rated second among its peers as a small news brand.
The paper and its website was pipped at the post at the UK Regional Press Awards in London on 16 April, with the Cambridge Independent being names the best small brand for news in the UK. The Cambrian News was a close runner-up.
“I can live with the Cambrian News being the best newspaper in Wales and the second-best in the UK,” Editor Mick O’Reilly said. “It a remarkable achievement for the Cambrian News team to be recognised by its industry peers from Britain and Northern Ireland and to finish second out of such a large field.”
The awards were handed out at a gala event in London. In all, 21 awards were handed out at the event, with the Belfast Telegraph daily taking eight of those honours. Other winners included the Yorkshire Post and the Manchester Evening News.
“The Cambrian News is in some pretty lofty territory rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest players in the UK news industry,” Mr O’Reilly said. “It speaks to the quality of our reporting both in print and online.”
It’s only the second time Cambrian News has been shortlisted for the UK Regional Press Awards in the paper’s 164-year history, having last made the finalist stage in 2014.
The judges noted that Cambrian News “hits far above its weight. And it does so through its fearless approach to local news and reporting.”
Scott Wood, Managing Director for Tindle Newspapers said: “Congratulations to the team at the Cambrian News on being recognised at the Regional Press Awards 2024 in the category of Small Media Brand.
“To finish runners up is a wonderful achievement and reward for the team continued efforts to serve their local communities with relevant, engaging content.
“The world of local media is fast-changing, and this is testament that the public want a local media company as part of their future.”
Meanwhile, the Cambrian News website continues to deliver a strong performance on user engagement.
Data collected from the Ipsos Iris user-centric panel user engagement chart, which measures how long on average each user spends on a site, showed the top place on this metric went to Tindle’s Cambrian News, with an average of 9.56 minutes per user, ahead of Carlisle News and Star website newsandstar.co.uk and Norwich Evening News platform eveningnews24.co.uk.