UK: Are Local Papers Becoming Old News?

I have strangely fond memories of my dad sitting on the sofa on a Saturday morning, swamped by a seemingly giant newspaper, getting up to date on the local goings-on and looking in the "hatched, matched and despatched" section to see if you there was anyone in there he knew. Unfortunately though, these are but distant memories; as our news consumption continues to move from the post box to the inbox, local newspapers especially are struggling to keep on landing on doormats around the UK.

As our infographic shows, based on data from the Press Gazette, local and regional newspapers are closing all around the country. From 2005 to 2016 there were net closures of 198 papers, leaving only 1,120 still going to press.