About The Ararat Advocate

The Ararat Advocate

Overview

The Ararat Advocate is a local newspaper serving Ararat and the surrounding district in western Victoria, in the country between the Grampians and the Pyrenees ranges. It is published by West Vic News Pty Ltd, an independent regional publisher based in Ararat, and it was launched on 1 May 2020 — at the height of the first COVID-19 disruption of the Australian country press — to fill the gap left when the district's established newspaper suspended printing. Directory listings describe the Advocate as a rural weekly, and it continues to publish a print edition alongside its digital platform; its precise print publication day is not stated here because it has not been pinned to a primary source.

The paper is one of three mastheads now published by West Vic News in the district. Its stablemates are the Pyrenees Advocate, the long-established newspaper of Beaufort, and the Stawell Times-News, which the company acquired in 2025. Since February 2025 the Ararat Advocate has also carried the inheritance of the Ararat Advertiser, the town's historic newspaper, which West Vic News purchased from Australian Community Media and merged into the Advocate. The result is that Ararat, a rural city of the Wimmera-Grampians fringe, is served by a locally owned independent newspaper at a time when many comparable Victorian towns have lost theirs entirely.

The website address associated with this profile, theadvocate.net.au, is a generic name shared in form by several Australian "Advocate" newspapers, so it is worth stating precisely which publication it belongs to here: a Country Press Australia authorisation application lodged with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in April 2021 lists "Ararat Advocate — West Vic News" against the domain theadvocate.net.au, and the platform reached through West Vic News' network today carries the Ararat Advocate's masthead and Ararat news. The domain is this paper's site.

History

The Ararat Advocate exists because of a closure. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit regional media revenues, Australian Community Media (ACM) closed its Ararat office and suspended printing of the Ararat Advertiser, the town's established newspaper. West Vic News, the publisher of the neighbouring Pyrenees Advocate at Beaufort, responded by starting a new newspaper for Ararat: the Ararat Advocate published its first edition on 1 May 2020. Publisher Craig Wilson later explained the decision in the company's submission to the Australian Parliament's inquiry into Australia's regional newspapers, dated 28 January 2022: West Vic News started the Ararat Advocate on 1 May 2020 after the Ararat Advertiser closed its office and suspended printing.

The venture was not originally meant to be permanent. Wilson has said the Advocate was intended as a temporary paper to keep Ararat served while the Advertiser was suspended, but he subsequently confirmed to the Public Interest Journalism Initiative that the paper would continue permanently. That commitment was noted publicly within months of the launch: on 28 October 2020, during a Victorian parliamentary debate on regional media, the member for Western Victoria, Juliana Addison, acknowledged Craig Wilson's work in establishing the Ararat Advocate for the community.

The company's January 2022 submission to the federal inquiry gives a clear picture of the young business at that point: West Vic News operated two newspapers in western Victoria — the Pyrenees Advocate, which it described as 148 years old, and the Ararat Advocate — provided seven full-time-equivalent jobs across the two communities, maintained offices in both Ararat and Beaufort, and reinvested its income in keeping the publications local and relevant. The submission also records the frustrations of a small independent publisher competing for government support against large chains, including its criticism that ACM had received substantial federal grant funding despite closing or suspending numerous publications, among them the Ararat title.

The paper's history took a further turn in February 2025. West Vic News acquired both the Ararat Advertiser and the Stawell Times-News from Australian Community Media. Rather than revive the Advertiser as a separate Ararat masthead alongside its own paper, West Vic News merged the Advertiser into the Ararat Advocate, uniting the town's historic title with the newspaper created to replace it in 2020. The Stawell Times-News, by contrast, continued as its own masthead under West Vic News ownership, with its first edition under the new owner published on Friday 7 March 2025, as recorded in the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's news data changes for the second quarter of 2025. The sequence — an independent start-up launched against a suspended chain title, then buying that title five years later — makes the Ararat Advocate an unusual case study in the recent history of the Australian country press.

Programming and Content

The Ararat Advocate is a general local newspaper, and its digital platform organises coverage under sections that reflect the life of its district: Latest News and General News; Council and Politics; Rural and Agriculture; Lifestyle and Entertainment; Our People; Sport; Business; and Opinion and Perspectives. Stories are tagged by locality, and the towns appearing alongside Ararat in that local coverage include Stawell, Beaufort, Avoca, Buangor, Great Western and Moyston — a fair map of the rural city and its surrounding farming and former goldfields communities.

Council and politics coverage, including regular opinion contributions from local councillors and the district's state member of parliament, sits alongside rural and agricultural reporting for the district's farming readership, community profiles under the Our People banner, and extensive local sport. Publisher Craig Wilson himself writes for the paper, and his bylines appear in its pages and on story aggregators that track the masthead. Some stories on the platform are free to read, while others sit behind the paper's subscription paywall, and the print edition remains part of the offering: the paper promotes its print publication with "out today" notices for the Ararat Advocate.

Audience and Reach

The Advocate's audience is the community of Ararat — the seat of the Ararat Rural City local government area — and the farming and township district around it in western Victoria, extending through the West Vic News network to Stawell, Beaufort and the Pyrenees district. No audited circulation figure for the paper is published, and none is claimed here. Its significance to its audience is better measured by the circumstances of its founding: it was created specifically so that Ararat would not be left without a local newspaper, and its survival, expansion and eventual absorption of the district's historic masthead indicate a readership and advertiser base sufficient to sustain an independent local publisher in a small rural market.

Digital Presence

The Ararat Advocate's digital home is the West Vic News platform, which brings the company's mastheads together under the branding "West Vic News — Ararat and Stawell, Grampians to the Pyrenees", presenting the Ararat Advocate, the Advertiser and the Stawell Times-News as its titles. The inventoried domain for this profile, theadvocate.net.au, was recorded as the Ararat Advocate's website in Country Press Australia's April 2021 authorisation application to the ACCC, when the company's contact address was given as 32 Willoby Street, Beaufort; the platform today resolves through the West Vic News network, including its content delivery mirror. Current operation was confirmed directly from the platform in October 2026, when Ararat-tagged stories were being published on dates including 15 to 18 October 2026, alongside fresh Stawell and district coverage. The site operates a subscription model in which selected stories are marked free to read and others require a subscription, and it promotes the print edition of the Ararat Advocate as it appears.

Ownership and Organisation

The Ararat Advocate is owned and published by West Vic News Pty Ltd, an independent regional publishing company whose publisher is Craig Wilson. The company began as the publisher of the Pyrenees Advocate of Beaufort — described in its own January 2022 parliamentary submission as a 148-year-old newspaper — and expanded into Ararat with the launch of the Advocate in May 2020. In February 2025 it acquired the Ararat Advertiser and the Stawell Times-News from Australian Community Media, merging the Advertiser into the Ararat Advocate and continuing the Stawell Times-News under its own masthead, giving the company three associated titles across Ararat, Stawell and Beaufort.

At the time of its January 2022 submission to the federal regional newspapers inquiry, West Vic News provided seven full-time-equivalent jobs across its two communities and kept offices in both Ararat and Beaufort; those figures are the company's own, stated as at January 2022, and are recorded here as such rather than as current staffing. The company's contact address published on its platform is 93a Barkly Street, Ararat, Victoria 3377, with the telephone number 03 5352 2866. The Ararat Advocate appears in the Australian Press Council's September 2026 list of constituent publications for Victoria, through Country Press Australia, confirming its standing as a current member publication of the country press network.

Contact and Availability

The Ararat Advocate is published from Ararat, Victoria, by West Vic News, whose published address is 93a Barkly Street, Ararat VIC 3377 and whose published telephone number is 03 5352 2866. Readers can follow the paper through the West Vic News digital platform, where Ararat news is published continuously and a selection of stories is free to read, with fuller access by subscription; the print edition is promoted on the platform as each issue appears. For advertising, subscriptions and newsroom contact, the West Vic News platform is the authoritative source of current details. The public business email field for this profile is intentionally left blank, in line with the directory's policy.