Kent on Saturday
Overview
Kent on Saturday is a weekly regional newspaper covering the county of Kent and parts of south east London, published every Saturday by KOS Media, the Kent publishing company owned by Archant. It began life in March 2005 as the Kentish Saturday Observer and was relaunched under its current name in April 2009. A tabloid, it mixes news and sport with television coverage, local celebrity stories, shopping and leisure content, and is sold in newsagents while free copies are distributed through home delivery rounds and business drops; an e-edition is available online.
The paper is the surviving half of KOS Media's weekend pair. Its sister title, Kent on Sunday, was closed by Archant in November 2017 after fifteen years, but Kent on Saturday continued under Archant ownership, and reference listings for the publisher continued to carry it among Archant's weekly paid-for newspapers covering Kent and south east London.
Origins as the Kentish Saturday Observer
Kent on Saturday's publisher, KOS Media, was founded in 2002 by Paul Stannard, a former executive with Adscene, Kent Regional Newspapers and Trinity Mirror Southern, based at Smeeth, near Ashford. The company's first newspaper, Kent on Sunday, was launched as a free title in 2002 and quickly won national awards. Three years later, directory listings record the launch of a Saturday companion on 12 March 2005 under the name Kentish Saturday Observer, distributed across all of Kent.
The Saturday paper was the first step in turning a single Sunday freesheet into a county-wide media business. KOS Media went on to add a network of free Wednesday 'your' titles for individual Kent towns from the summer of 2007, the Kentnews.co.uk website, the YourKentTV internet television channel and a stable of magazines. But the weekend papers remained the flagships: when the company retrenched in 2011, its managing director said the savings had allowed it to invest in and expand Kent on Saturday and Kent on Sunday above everything else.
Relaunch and the 2009 Changes
In April 2009 the Kentish Saturday Observer was relaunched as Kent on Saturday, aligning its name with the Sunday flagship and giving the pair a single weekend brand. The relaunch coincided with a fundamental change in how the papers reached readers. Until May 2009 all KOS Media newspapers had been free. From June 2009, Kent on Saturday and Kent on Sunday became paid-for titles in newsagents, in order to increase availability, while free copies were diverted to business rounds and home delivery. Kent on Sunday's newsagent price was 90p. The mid-week local papers remained free, and all the titles were published as page-turning e-editions, free online or by subscription — a hybrid model that the company maintained for its Saturday paper thereafter.
Content and Character
Kent on Saturday was designed as a weekend read rather than a hard-news daily substitute. Reference descriptions of the paper list its coverage as television programmes, local celebrities, shopping and leisure, in addition to news and sport, and note that its focus — like that of its former sister title — remained on editorial content. Included as a supplement was Review, a pull-out carrying restaurant reviews, television and film reviews, and a property section. KOS Media also published magazines alongside its paid-for papers, including the Kent Weekend entertainment and leisure guide, which complemented the Saturday paper's weekend positioning.
The paper's editor, in the period documented by its reference entries, was Gary Wright. His background spanned the national and local press: he had previously worked on the national tabloid The People, on the regional press agency Kent News & Pictures, on the local television news programme Meridian Tonight, and on the KM Group's Kentish Express — the Ashford title of KOS Media's principal rival.
Place in the KOS Portfolio
Kent on Saturday sat within a portfolio that, at its height, made KOS Media one of the most decorated small publishers in Britain. The company's newspapers won more than ten national awards, including UK Regional Newspaper of the Year and UK Free Weekly Newspaper of the Year six times. Kent on Sunday carried off Free Weekly Newspaper of the Year at the Newspaper Society's Weekly Newspaper Awards in both 2003 and 2007, with its staff also taking individual honours. The group produced YourKentTV, published Isle Magazine quarterly for the Isle of Thanet, Visit Kent and Taste of Kent, and published BBC Radio Kent County Life under contract for the BBC — a deal that provoked a complaint from the rival KM Group. It was also one of the first local media organisations to launch its own iPhone application.
The Archant Takeover
Archant, the Norwich-based publisher, had held a minority interest in KOS Media since 2005 and supported it through the advertising recession, investing £215,000 in 2008 and a further £300,000 in 2009; its annual report recorded its share of the company's losses rising to £196,000 in 2009. In June 2010 Archant bought KOS Media outright for an undisclosed sum, following a restructuring of the holding company. The business then employed around seventy full-time staff. Archant's chief executive Adrian Jeakings said the acquisition strengthened the group's existing presence in Kent and provided a springboard for further investment, setting up a heavyweight contest with the dominant county publisher, the family-owned KM Group.
Retrenchment Around It
The years after the takeover brought steady contraction around the Saturday paper. In December 2010 KOS Media announced an editorial restructure in response to challenging trading conditions, putting eight jobs at risk. In January 2011 it stopped printing all but one of its 'your' free weeklies, converting them to online-only e-editions; the e-editions of the 'your' titles were themselves closed in December 2012, with Your Deal following in December 2013. Kent on Sunday was rebranded with a new masthead in January 2011 and continued alongside Kent on Saturday as the group's flagship pair, produced from Apple Barn at Smeeth, Ashford — the postal address directories give for Kent on Saturday as Apple Barn, Hythe Road, Smeeth, Ashford, Kent TN25 6SR, with the kentnews.co.uk website and editorial@kosmedia.co.uk email.
The Closure of Kent on Sunday
In November 2017 Archant announced that Kent on Sunday would close, its last editions appearing over the weekend of 24 to 26 November 2017, and that the companion Kent News website would close with it. Chief executive Jeff Henry told staff that continuing declines in commercial revenue had made the Sunday title no longer economically viable, and that buyers had been sought without success. The closure also ended KOS Media's presence in Ashford: the Kentish Times series, which had been produced in the same office, moved to Archant's East London base in Barking, some fifty-six miles away. Kent on Sunday's editor Chris Britcher, who had spent more than twelve years with Archant and five as the paper's editor, was made redundant after seeing off the final edition, and its three reporters took jobs with the rival KM Group.
Kent on Saturday was not part of that closure announcement. Reference and directory sources continued to describe the paper after 2017 as a weekly Archant title, published every Saturday for Kent and parts of south east London, and Archant's own portfolio listings retained Kent on Saturday among its weekly paid-for newspapers.
Distribution and Digital Presence
The paper's distribution model reflected its hybrid free and paid-for design: copies were sold through newsagents across Kent, free copies went out on home delivery rounds and as business drops, and the e-edition was available free online or by subscription. Its stated coverage area — the whole county of Kent and parts of south east London — made it one of the few genuinely county-wide print products in a market otherwise divided between the KM Group's town and district titles, the Kentish Times series in the south east London boroughs, and local freesheets.
Significance
Kent on Saturday's significance is twofold. Journalistically, it was the Saturday flagship of an independent start-up that took on one of Britain's strongest family newspaper groups and won national awards doing so. Commercially, its survival illustrates the economics that decided which titles lived and which died in the 2010s: when Archant cut the KOS business back, it was the free town weeklies that went first, the Sunday flagship that went in 2017, and the paid-for Saturday paper — with cover-price revenue, a weekend leisure franchise and its Review supplement — that reference sources continued to list as a going concern.
