Midland News Association (also known as MNA Media) is Britain’s largest independent regional news company. It publishes the UK's biggest-selling regional daily newspaper the '' Express & Star'' and its sister title the ''

Shropshire Star The ''Shropshire Star'' is reputedly the twelfth biggest-selling regional newspaper in the UK. It is based at Grosvenor House, Telford where it covers the whole of Shropshire plus parts of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Cheshire ...

'', as well as 16 weekly titles and the monthly ''Shropshire Magazine''. The MNA has one of the fastest growing web networks in the regional press, with 1.3 million average monthly unique users to its sites expressandstar.com and shropshirestar.com – up 33.8 per cent year on year.

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...

and iPhone apps for '' Express & Star'' and ''

'' were launched in January 2012, with further apps for Android and

Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...

scheduled for release in January 2013. Midland News Association is part of the Claverley Group, which also owns the daily newspapers in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, the '' Jersey Evening Post'' and ''

Guernsey Press and Star The ''Guernsey Press and Star'', more commonly known as the ''Guernsey Press'' is the only daily newspaper published in Guernsey. History The ''Guernsey Evening Press'' was first published in 1897. In 1951 it purchased the struggling ''Guernse ...

''. The company's head office is in Queen Street,

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...

Publishing

Daily Newspapers * Express & Star *

Weekly Newspapers * Bridgnorth Journal * Cannock Chronicle * Dudley Chronicle * Halesowen Chronicle * Market Drayton Advertiser * Mid Wales Journal * Newport Advertiser * Sandwell Chronicle * South Shropshire Journal * Stourbridge Chronicle * Telford Journal * Walsall Chronicle * Shrewsbury Chronicle * Wolverhampton Chronicle Magazines * Shropshire Magazine As of 2020, editions of the weekly newspapers are delivered free to subscribers of the online page turning edition of the Shropshire Star or Express and Star. Previously many weekly papers were delivered to every home.

History

The history of the MNA can be traced back more than 130 years to a partnership between two men, including an ancestor of the Graham family who still own the newspapers today. Scottish-American millionaire

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

founded the '' Express & Star'' in

in the 1880s along with a group of radical Liberal Party members, including Thomas Graham. Carnegie’s aim was to campaign, through a string of regional daily newspapers, for the creation of a British Republic. His dream was to sack the monarchy, scrap the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

and destroy every vestige of privilege in the land. By 1902 Carnegie had abandoned his mission and the newspaper has been owned by the Graham family ever since.

Early growth

At least 28 newspapers have been published in Wolverhampton over the past century but the ''Express & Star'' remains the market leader. Among those to be seen off were the Evening News, which closed in July 1915. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the ''Express & Star'' raised its price to a penny due to the price of paper, with a promise to revert to a halfpenny when hostilities ended. By 1918, it had a staff of 100, including one delivery van and one driver. The Graham family took a wider view of the newspaper industry, with Malcolm Graham – the current owner's late father – spending part of his twenties on newspapers in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, where he learnt from the slick "New World" style of journalism. On his return, he applied to the ''Express & Star'' the more modern approach he had seen first hand. By the 1930s, the circulation was more than 100,000 and the paper was part of a newspaper war which saw readers offered all manners of inducement to boost sales, such as tea-sets and holiday tokens. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, newsprint restrictions meant the size of the paper was reduced by half. In response to the shortage, the design moved from broadsheet to tabloid. A comforts fund organised by the paper raised £160,000 over the course of the war, while the paper also became the first to sponsor a Spitfire collection fund.

1950s to 1970s

The post-war period saw the company compete with new innovations such as television yet still push up sales by an average of 1,120 a year. Despite a national print dispute in 1959, the circulation rose to 201,594 copies a day. Until 1963, the MNA published the ''Express & Star'', ''Wolverhampton Chronicle'' plus the Saturday football paper, all set in a conventional hot metal composing room and printed on five letterpress machines. In 1964, plans were made to hive off 19,000 copies of the Salop edition to create the ''

'', published at a new photo-composed

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on ...

plant in Ketley. The board saw an opportunity with the growth of Dawley New Town – later renamed

Telford Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in t ...

– and produced a successful news and advertising product to serve a county which is a mixture of agriculture and industrial areas. Serving the largest inland county in the UK, both ''

'' and ''Shropshire Weekly Series'' cover all the major population centres within the circulation area. Innovation continued during the 1970s, with the MNA introducing the first VDU system and adopting computerised accounting, as well as facsimile transmission.

1980s to present day

In the 1980s the MNA paved the way for the computer revolution in the British newspaper industry and has remained in the forefront of publishing technology. The ''Express & Star'' is firmly established the biggest-selling regional evening newspaper in Britain, while the ''Shropshire Star'' remains the fifth biggest, comfortably outselling metropolitan titles like the ''

Birmingham Mail The ''Birmingham Mail'' (branded the ''Black Country Mail'' in the Black Country) is a tabloid newspaper based in Birmingham, England but distributed around Birmingham, the Black Country, and Solihull and parts of Warwickshire, Worcestershire a ...

''. The MNA continues to provide same-day news, with local editions for many communities. With innovations in areas such as

Apps and

digital newspaper A digital newspaper is a digital version of a printed newspaper. Newspapers can be digitally published online or as a digital copy on a digital device, such as a mobile phone or an E Ink reader. Online Web Many organisations that publish a pr ...

technology, it continues to be at the forefront of regional news more than 130 years after the Carnegie-Graham partnership. In December 2012 Midland News Association also launched its own recruitment agency, Star Employment Services, which operates from MNA’s headquarters in Queen Street, Wolverhampton.

MNA Digital

MNA Digital is the online branch of Midland News Association, being responsible for developing the websites expressandstar.com and shropshirestar.com and associated newspaper apps for

, iPhone, Android and

. 2016 saw a change in the service offering delivered by MNA Digital and the creation of a search marketing agency H1. H1 offers PPC (Paid Search) and SEO services to advertisers outside of MNA's traditional footprint, including fulfilling resold services to other publishers and marketing agencies.

References

External links

expressandstar.comshropshirestar.com
* * *The MNA o
www.linkedin.comMNA DigitalH1 on TwitterMNA Digital twitter
*https://h1search.com/ {{UK regional daily newspapers Mass media in the West Midlands (region) Mass media in Wolverhampton Mass media in Shropshire