About Lismore Times

Lismore Times

Overview

The Lismore Times is a free weekly community newspaper serving Lismore and the surrounding Lismore City Council area in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. It was launched in 2024 by Times News Group, the regional publishing company owned by Surf Coast News Australia Pty Ltd, as the fourth of the group's New South Wales mastheads, following within weeks the 12 July 2024 launches of the Ballina Times, Byron Coast Times and Tweed Coast Times. Produced on the same free, advertising-supported weekly model as its sister titles, the Lismore Times publishes in print, online and across social media, covering Lismore City Council and community news, flood recovery and development, business, events, sport and property. It is a separate masthead in its own right, with its own section of the group website at timesnewsgroup.com.au/lismoretimes/, and it appears as a distinct registered news source on the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Register of Eligible News Businesses and in the Australian Press Council's September 2026 list of constituent publications. Its arrival restored a locally produced print newspaper to a city that had just lost one.

History

Lismore's newspaper history is long. The city's first newspaper, The Northern Star and Richmond and Tweed River Advocate, was first published by William Kelleway in May 1876 and survives today as The Northern Star. For most of its life the Northern Star was the dominant daily voice of the Richmond and Tweed valleys, but in News Corporation's 2020 regional restructure it was moved to a digital-only format, and its content was later merged under the Daily Telegraph and Courier-Mail mastheads online, ending Lismore's run of more than 140 years with a locally printed daily.

Australian Community Media attempted to fill the print gap by launching the Lismore City News in late 2021, a paper that found itself covering the catastrophic floods that devastated Lismore and the Northern Rivers in February and March 2022, barely three months after its first edition. The experiment was short-lived: the Lismore City News published its final edition on 27 July 2024, with ACM's managing director Tony Kendall citing rising costs, a lack of government support for regional newspapers, and Meta's decision not to renew agreements to pay for news. Kendall said closing the paper was hard "given how proud we are of everyone's efforts to make this publication work since its launch in November 2021, especially in the aftermath of the floods that devastated the region barely three months later."

Times News Group moved into the vacancy almost immediately. The Public Interest Journalism Initiative's Australian News Data Report for July 2024, having recorded the group's Ballina, Byron Coast and Tweed Coast launches of 12 July 2024 and the closure of the Lismore City News on 27 July, noted that "the company has since launched a newspaper in Lismore" — the Lismore Times, which took its place in the group's New South Wales network covering the city and its surrounds. In October 2024 the Lismore Times was registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority on the Register of Eligible News Businesses under Surf Coast News Australia Pty Ltd. In June 2026 the network was further strengthened when Times News Group acquired the Narrabri Courier, Gunnedah Times and Wee Waa News — titles that had closed only a month earlier, the Narrabri Courier having been published since 1913 — and returned them to publication from 11 June 2026, taking the group to 17 mastheads across Victoria and New South Wales, with the Lismore Times named among its New South Wales titles alongside the Byron Coast Times, Ballina Times and Tweed Coast Times.

Programming and Content

The Lismore Times covers the standard round of a community weekly, weighted to its city. News coverage includes Lismore City Council, development and planning, flood recovery and infrastructure, health, education and business; stories monitored from the group's site include Lismore City Council's call for expressions of interest from businesses, investors and developers in a proposed industrial precinct at 97 Caniaba Street, South Lismore, where about 21 lots could provide space for new enterprises. Flood recovery remains a defining subject for the city the paper serves: Lismore City Council describes its 2026–27 works as the largest infrastructure and flood recovery program in its history, and the rebuilding of homes, businesses and roads after the 2022 disaster continues to shape the local news agenda the Times reports. Journalists file across the group's northern titles, so the paper also carries regional stories of shared concern, such as the joint opposition of the Tweed, Lismore City, Kyogle and Byron Shire councils to proposed New South Wales government funding changes — changes the councils estimated would reduce their combined annual funding by $18.9 million, reaching $222 million over ten years. Events, entertainment and sport coverage serves the city's clubs and cultural life, and property is a signature section across the group: the Lismore Times carries the group's real estate guide for its territory.

Audience and Reach

The Lismore Times is aimed at residents of Lismore and the nearby Northern Rivers communities of the Wilsons and Richmond river valleys, and is distributed free, consistent with Times News Group's model of free hyperlocal papers supported by advertising, including its real estate guide. Lismore is the commercial and administrative centre of the Northern Rivers, and the paper's audience extends across the city — including Goonellabah and South Lismore — and into the surrounding villages and farming districts of the Lismore City Council area. The title is listed among the Australian Press Council's constituent publications in the Council's September 2026 list. The paper does not publish an independently audited circulation or readership figure in the sources consulted, and none is claimed here.

Digital Presence

The Lismore Times publishes online through its section of the Times News Group website, timesnewsgroup.com.au/lismoretimes/, where its stories appear under its own masthead alongside those of its sister mastheads. Media-monitoring services track the group's site, recording Lismore stories — council, development and regional advocacy among them — published through 2026, confirming the title's continuing digital output alongside its weekly print edition. Print editions of Times News Group titles are published to the group website in digital form, and the group promotes its papers through LinkedIn and other social channels — the 2024 North Coast launches were announced on the group's LinkedIn page.

Ownership and Organisation

The Lismore Times is published by Surf Coast News Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 66 131 276 303), trading as Times News Group. The group's managing director is Warick Brown, who is also the registered contact for the Lismore Times on the ACMA Register of Eligible News Businesses. Times News Group began in Victoria — its founding title is the Surf Coast Times — and by October 2026 its registered mastheads included the Ballarat Times, Bellarine Times, Bendigo Times, Geelong Times, Surf Coast Times, Golden Plains Times, Armstrong Creek Times, The McIvor Times and The Moorabool News in Victoria; the Ballina Times, Byron Coast Times, Tweed Coast Times, Lismore Times, Gunnedah Times, Narrabri Courier and Wee Waa News in New South Wales; and the Mt Gambier Times in South Australia, the latter held through the related company SEG TNG News Media Pty Ltd. Brown has described the group's philosophy in terms of rescue and continuity: "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," he said in June 2026. "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." No separate editor for the Lismore Times alone is publicly named in the sources consulted, and none is asserted here.

Contact and Availability

The Lismore Times is available free in print each week at outlets around Lismore and online through its section of the Times News Group website, timesnewsgroup.com.au/lismoretimes/. The contact recorded for the newspaper on the ACMA Register of Eligible News Businesses is Warick Brown of Times News Group, telephone 0438 778 266, email warick@timesnewsgroup.com.au.