About Moorabool News

Moorabool News

The Moorabool News is a weekly community newspaper serving the Moorabool Shire in Victoria — the peri-urban and rural district west of Melbourne, centred on Bacchus Marsh and Ballan. With a history stretching back 154 years, it is one of the state's oldest country papers, rescued from closure by the Times News Group, which acquired it to save the shire from becoming a local news desert. Published by the independent Torquay-based group, it covers local news, events, sports, and rural affairs across one of Victoria's fastest-growing shires.

Overview

The Moorabool News serves the communities within the bounds of Moorabool Shire — Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, Gordon, Blackwood, Rowsley, Balliang and Balliang East, Elaine, Greendale, Myrniong, and Korweinguboora, with the outskirts of Ballarat, Daylesford, and Trentham. The shire is a study in contrasts: Bacchus Marsh, the market-garden town turned Melbourne commuter belt, growing rapidly on the city's western fringe; Ballan, the historic gold-era town on the Western Highway; and the rural west — Blackwood, Gordon, Elaine — where the Wombat State Forest meets farming country.

The paper describes itself as a key local news media outlet with complete focus on all things local, its advertising and editorial team committed to providing people living, working, visiting, and investing in the shire with current and relevant information, advertising, and commentary on breaking news, events, issues, and opinions. That "all things local" remit is tested daily in a shire as diverse as Moorabool: the same edition must serve the Bacchus Marsh commuter reading about the Parwan growth plans, the Ballan local following the Western Highway bypass debates, and the Blackwood farmer checking the livestock pages — and the News's 154-year survival is evidence that it has learned to do exactly that. Its regular sections span motoring, home, education, finance, travel, livestock, gardening, fishing, and farming — the mix of a shire that is simultaneously commuter belt and farming country.

History

The Moorabool News's lineage stretches back 154 years — to the early 1870s, when the Bacchus Marsh district's first papers served the market gardens, the gold traffic on the Western Highway, and the farming settlements of the Pentland Hills. The paper's exact founding title is part of the tangled family tree of Victorian country journalism, but its continuous service to the Moorabool district — through the names and amalgamations of 150 years — makes it one of the oldest papers in the state.

The paper's modern history turned on a rescue. Like hundreds of Australian country papers in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Moorabool News faced closure as its previous owners retrenched from regional print. The Times News Group — the independent Torquay-based publisher behind the Surf Coast Times, Bellarine Times, Geelong Times, and a growing stable of regional titles — acquired the paper, saving it from extinction. Times News Group managing director Warick Brown later said of the group's rescue strategy: "In the past five years we were able to save the McIvor Times in Heathcote, which is now 163 years old, and the Moorabool News, 154 years old, both being local news deserts had we not felt an obligation to try and save them."

Brown's framing captures the stakes: "When a local newspaper closes, communities lose far more than a publication. They lose a watchdog, a storyteller, a historical record and one of the few institutions dedicated entirely to covering local issues. We believed these newspapers were too important to lose." The Moorabool News — 154 years old, serving a shire of tens of thousands — was too important to lose, and the Times News Group gave it a future within its stable of free and paid community titles.

Under the group's ownership, the paper has continued as the shire's dedicated weekly, its journalists covering the growth pressures, farming life, and community stories of the Moorabool district. The group counts among the paper's achievements significantly increased circulation and readership rates, statewide industry acknowledgements, and regular positive feedback from readers — the metrics of a rescue that worked, a 154-year-old paper given not just survival but renewed growth.

Content

The Moorabool News provides a cohesive source of news and views within the Moorabool Shire. Its journalism spans:

• Local news: Moorabool Shire Council decisions, planning and development — the growth-front battles as Bacchus Marsh expands, the Parwan employment precinct, the infrastructure lag — along with roads, rates, and rural services.
• Community: the events, achievements, and campaigns of the shire's towns — from Bacchus Marsh's festivals to Ballan's community groups, the CWA branches, the schools, and the volunteer organisations.
• Sport: country football and netball, cricket, and the community clubs of the shire's towns, with the match reports and club news of the weekly.
• Rural affairs: the farming life of the shire — the market gardens of Bacchus Marsh (the town's historic industry), livestock, the Wombat Forest fringe, and the agricultural economy of the west.
• Business and lifestyle: local businesses, real estate, motoring, home and gardening, travel, and the lifestyle content of a community weekly serving a growing shire.

Coverage & Audience

The Moorabool News circulates across the Moorabool Shire — Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, Gordon, Blackwood, Rowsley, Balliang and Balliang East, Elaine, Greendale, Myrniong, and Korweinguboora, with the outskirts of Ballarat, Daylesford, and Trentham. It is a weekly community newspaper, published in English, with a local scope.

Its audience is the residents of the Moorabool Shire — the commuters and young families of Bacchus Marsh's growth suburbs, the townspeople of Ballan, and the farming families of the shire's rural west — who rely on the paper for the shire news, sporting results, and community stories that connect the district.

Ownership

The Moorabool News is published by the Times News Group — legally Surf Coast News Australia Pty Ltd — the independent regional publisher based in Torquay, Victoria. The group is led by managing director Warick Brown and publishes a stable of community newspapers across regional Victoria — the Surf Coast Times and Bellarine Times (the group's 2008 flagships), the Geelong Times, the Armstrong Creek Times, the Golden Plains Times, the Ballarat Times, the Bendigo Times, the Moorabool News, and the McIvor Times — with expansion into northern New South Wales (the Byron Coast Times, Ballina Times, Tweed Coast Times, and Lismore Times) and South Australia, plus the rescued NSW titles the Narrabri Courier, Gunnedah Times, and Wee Waa News.

The group's acquisition strategy — buying historic country papers at the point of closure and giving them a future within its stable — has made it one of the most significant independent forces in Australian regional media. The Moorabool News, at 154 years old, is among the oldest titles the group has saved.

Digital Presence

The Moorabool News operates online through the Times News Group's digital network, with its dedicated page at timesnewsgroup.com.au/moorabool-news/ serving as the paper's digital home. The group's titles maintain dedicated local websites and active Facebook pages, extending the weeklies' reach into digital and social channels, with local news, sport, and community content published online and shared through social media.

For the Moorabool Shire, the News remains what it has been for 154 years: the shire's own paper — the weekly record of its market gardens and growth fronts, its council chambers and sports fields — rescued from the brink, still publishing, the watchdog, storyteller, and historical record of the district west of Melbourne.