About Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser

Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser

Overview

The Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser is a weekly newspaper published at Cowes, on Phillip Island in Victoria's Bass Coast Shire. Appearing on Wednesdays, it is the island's local paper of record, covering Cowes, San Remo, Newhaven, Rhyll, Ventnor and the island's other townships, and extending across the bridge to mainland communities including Kilcunda, Bass, Corinella, Coronet Bay, Dalyston, Grantville, The Gurdies and Wonthaggi. The paper describes itself as the highest-selling newspaper throughout Phillip Island and San Remo — its own characterisation — and its pages mix Bass Coast Shire Council coverage, environmental reporting, community news, schools coverage and sport with reporting on the island's two great visitor drawcards, the Penguin Parade and the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

The Advertiser is published by its own company, Phillip Island & San Remo Advertiser Pty Ltd, and is one of the shrinking number of independently owned suburban and country weeklies in Victoria. The Public Interest Journalism Initiative's Australian News Data Report (March 2023) recorded that Phillip Island is covered by the Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser, and the paper remains listed in the Australian Press Council's September 2026 list of constituent publications and in the Country Press Australia network for the Gippsland region.

History

The Advertiser's exact founding date is not stated in the governing records consulted for this profile, and no start year is asserted here. The title was, however, well established by the early 1990s: a Victorian government scientific advisory committee record shows a public notice advertised in the "Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser" on 14 February 1991, and the Phillip Island Conservation Society's newspaper cuttings file for the Advertiser begins in December 1988. The island had earlier papers — the Phillip Island Sun ran from 1979 to 1988 and the Phillip Island Star from 1988 to 1989, according to the same society's archive listing — but the Advertiser is the title that endured as the island's weekly.

Wednesday editions of the paper can be sighted across the decades — a full edition of Wednesday 3 March 2021 survives in an online press archive, and the Phillip Island and District Historical Society's newsletters reproduce its pages from Wednesday 31 January 2024 and Wednesday 26 November 2025, evidence of an unbroken weekly rhythm.

The paper's place in island life extends beyond news. In 2023 its book imprint, Chicory Publishing — named for the chicory industry whose kilns are a landmark of the island's farming past — published Once Upon An Island – The Early Days of Phillip Island, by Anne Oswin, Eleanor McKay and Sarah Hudson. The book was commended in the Collaborative Community History Award at the 2023 Victorian Community History Awards, presented by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. McKay has represented the Advertiser in its dealings with the Bass Coast Shire Council, appearing in council minutes in that capacity in 2019. Trade reporting in the South Gippsland Sentinel Times has also recorded the Advertiser winning one of the top national awards for country and regional newspapers in Australia at a joint awards night of the Victorian and NSW Country Press Associations held at Yarrawonga, recognition shared that night with a state award for the Sentinel-Times itself.

Programming and Content

The Advertiser's news agenda is set by island life. Bass Coast Shire Council decisions, planning questions and infrastructure debates are covered closely, as are the environmental issues that dominate public discussion on an island famous for its wildlife: the paper's reporting feeds the long local argument over conservation, development and tourism pressure. Its coverage of the Phillip Island Nature Parks' penguin colony, the Koala Conservation Centre and the island's coastline sits alongside reporting on the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at the Phillip Island Circuit — its January 2023 reporting, for example, put the value of the MotoGP's return at a "$50 million boost" in its headline.

Community coverage is the paper's core. The edition of Wednesday 26 November 2025, reproduced in the Phillip Island and District Historical Society's newsletter, carried the annual Phillip Island Toy Run — the charity motorcycle ride from Caldermeade Farm to Cowes held on 7 December, collecting gifts and donations for local families — and a Cowes Primary School excursion to the Phillip Island History Museum, with further photographs published on the paper's website. Schools, service clubs, CFA brigades, churches, markets and sporting clubs all appear regularly. Sport coverage spans island football and netball, cricket, golf and sailing, with a dedicated sports desk contact at the paper. Local history is also a recurring strand, in keeping with the paper's own publishing venture into island history.

Audience and Reach

The Advertiser's readership combines a permanent island population with one of Victoria's largest holiday and weekend visitor markets. Its own description of its footprint names Phillip Island and San Remo as its heartland — where it claims to be the highest-selling newspaper — and lists Kilcunda, Bass, Corinella, Coronet Bay, Dalyston, Wonthaggi, Grantville and The Gurdies among the towns it covers. No independently audited circulation figure for the title is published in the records consulted, and none is claimed here. The paper's significance to its market is recognised in media research: the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's news data reports treat the Advertiser as Phillip Island's local news producer, and federal News Media Assistance Program research listings likewise record the paper among the Bass Coast's news outlets.

Digital Presence

The newspaper publishes online at pisra.com.au, where stories from the print edition — including education coverage under paths such as pisra.com.au/education — are posted alongside web material. The site carries the paper's local news, sport and community content for readers off the island, including the many former residents and holiday-home owners who follow island affairs from Melbourne and beyond. Its article URLs follow a simple news format, as with its January 2023 MotoGP report. The Advertiser's presence in third-party records is consistent and current: the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Register of Eligible News Businesses lists the masthead with its registered content link as https://www.pisra.com.au/, and the paper maintains its listings with the Australian Press Council and Country Press Australia.

Ownership and Organisation

The Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser is published by Phillip Island & San Remo Advertiser Pty Ltd (ABN 24 007 132 210), an independent company based in Cowes. The Australian Communications and Media Authority register, which records the business's registration date as 19 February 2026, names Jane O'Garey as the contact for the registered news business. The company operates the newspaper as a standalone masthead rather than as part of a chain: the ACMA entry registers a single newspaper masthead, the Advertiser itself. The paper is a member of Country Press Australia, appearing in the association's Gippsland, East Gippsland and Melbourne Ranges network, and is a constituent publication of the Australian Press Council, whose standards framework it appears under in the Council's September 2026 listing.

Contact and Availability

The Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser is published weekly on Wednesdays and sold across Phillip Island and San Remo, with home delivery arranged through local newsagencies. The paper's office is in Cowes, the island's main town. The Australian Communications and Media Authority register lists the paper's contact number as (03) 5952 3201, and its published sports email address is sport@pisra.com.au. Current stories, photo galleries and information about the paper are available at its website, pisra.com.au.