Torbay Weekly: Torbay's Free Weekly Newspaper for Torquay, Paignton and Brixham

The Torbay Weekly is a free weekly newspaper serving Torbay, the South Devon borough made up of the three coastal towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. Launched in April 2020, at the height of the first coronavirus lockdown, it was created as a print and digital title with a deliberately positive, community-first brief, summed up in its slogan "Naturally Inspiring". The paper covers the whole of the Bay, from Torquay's harbour and Paignton's seafront to the fishing port of Brixham, and it distributes copies to homes across its patch as well as publishing online.

Although it is one of the youngest local newspapers in Devon, the Torbay Weekly was not the work of newcomers. It was launched by the regional publisher Archant under a launch editor, Jim Parker, who had spent four decades on Torbay's established paper, the Herald Express, and it was assembled in response to what local businesses and community groups told the publisher they wanted: a quality local paper devoted entirely to Torbay. In 2021 the title was sold to Clear Sky Publishing, a Devon-based independent publisher formed by two of the people behind its launch, and its website was later rebranded online as Torbay Today, powered by the print paper.

Overview

The Torbay Weekly is a free weekly newspaper for the Torbay area of Devon, in the south-west of England. Its patch is the unitary authority of Torbay, centred on Torquay, where the paper was based in the town centre at launch, and including Paignton and Brixham. The first edition ran to 24 pages, and the title was conceived from the outset as a combined print and digital product, with a companion website carrying news between print editions.

The paper's identity is built around celebration as much as scrutiny. At launch it adopted the theme "Naturally Inspiring", a commitment to recognising what its editor described as the good things happening in the Bay and the people doing them. That tone was set in its very first weeks, when an early front cover was given over to "Our Heroes", featuring a father-and-son pair of doctors working on the front line at Torbay Hospital during the pandemic.

History

The Torbay Weekly was announced in January 2020 by Archant, which already published several titles in Devon together with lifestyle magazines across the South West. The publisher said the new title was a direct response to feedback from local businesses and community groups, who had repeatedly asked for a quality local paper for the Bay. Six new editorial and commercial roles were created for the launch.

The launch itself became a test of remote working. The paper appeared on schedule in April 2020 despite the coronavirus lockdown, with the whole team working from home and changes still being made to the first edition, because of fast-moving pandemic developments, almost as it went to print. The first edition was produced as a special in partnership with Torbay Council, carrying the council's crisis support information, helpline details and messages about services such as food banks and delivery firms for vulnerable residents, and it was delivered to 65,000 homes across the Bay. The regular print run that followed was 20,000 copies.

Ownership and Publisher

The Torbay Weekly began life as an Archant title. Archant's executive chairman at the time, Simon Bax, presented the launch as an example of the company's customer-centric approach, assembling a management team with deep local knowledge of Torbay.

In August 2021, little more than a year after launch, Archant sold the Torbay Weekly to Clear Sky Publishing, a new Devon-based company, as part of a package that also included the North Devon Gazette and Exeter Life magazine. Clear Sky had been formed by Simon Bax, by then Archant's former executive chairman, together with Chris Coward, the Torbay Weekly's managing director. Jim Parker became Clear Sky's editor-in-chief alongside his editing role. Clear Sky committed to launching further online and print brands in Devon, and it went on to start the MidDevon Weekly, relaunch an Exeter magazine and acquire The Moorlander, the Dartmoor paper. The two organisations said they would continue to work closely together on local media provision in the region.

Coverage and Content

The paper covers South Devon news across Torquay, Paignton and Brixham: council decisions and community campaigns, local business, health, education, what's on, and sport. Sport was a founding strength. Before launch, the Weekly recruited Dave Thomas, the Herald Express's chief sportswriter, who had covered more than 2,200 Torquay United football matches during his long career on the rival title. The launch editorial team also included content creators Nikki Belso, Ellen Grindley and Tim Herbert alongside Thomas.

The content model is community-led. Clear Sky has described its mission as being the voice of the local community, celebrating positive events while also helping to find solutions where improvements are needed, and it stresses that its editors, journalists and contributors live and work in the areas they write about. Readers and community groups are treated as sources as well as audience, an approach the company first developed in Torbay and then set out to apply across its other Devon titles.

Community Role

The community role of the Torbay Weekly was demonstrated before its first regular edition appeared. The launch partnership with Torbay Council turned the paper into a channel for reaching residents who might not have internet access or might not otherwise hear about the help available to them during the pandemic, with councillors writing on the front page about keeping families safe. Reaching every household in the Bay with printed information was the explicit aim of that special edition.

That founding idea, a paper written by and for its community, remained the title's stated purpose under Clear Sky. The publisher told a parliamentary inquiry into local media that it aimed to inform, entertain and inspire so that readers felt more connected to the area in which they live, and to have a positive impact on residents and on the local businesses that depend on their custom. Clear Sky is regulated by IMPRESS and says it complies with the Editors' Code of Practice.

Print and Digital Presence

In print, the Torbay Weekly is a free weekly delivered to homes across Torbay; after the exceptional 65,000-copy launch distribution, its regular print run was set at 20,000 copies. Across the Clear Sky group as a whole, the publisher has reported reaching around 50,000 homes a week in print.

Digitally, the paper's companion website was rebranded in July 2023, when Clear Sky launched its "Today" brand across its weeklies. The Torbay Weekly's site became Torbay Today, described as being powered by the print title, sitting alongside North Devon Today and Moorlander Today. The official website listed for the paper is torbayweekly.co.uk, and the publisher has been developing new websites for each of its titles as part of an online model intended to combine the traditions of print journalism with the immediacy of social media.

Audience and Reach

The Torbay Weekly's audience is the population of the Bay itself: Torquay, Paignton and Brixham households receiving the free paper, together with online readers. The scale of its ambition was visible at launch, when the special first edition went to all 65,000 homes in Torbay. Clear Sky has put its group's online audience at nearly 150,000 users across its titles, with around 20 full-time and part-time employees and roughly 50 freelance and part-time contributors working across the portfolio.

The paper operates in a competitive local market. Its launch prompted Reach plc, publisher of the Herald Express, to expand its own Devon operation, creating new roles and launching a dedicated Torbay section within its Devon Live website. The Weekly's pitch to readers and advertisers was the opposite of the big-group model: a single paper devoted wholly to Torbay, produced by journalists with long personal histories in the Bay.

Notable People

Jim Parker, the launch editor, is the paper's best-known figure. He spent 44 years in the regional press, 40 of them with the Herald Express, and edited that paper for nine years until the summer of 2018, before coming out of his short break from editing to launch the Weekly in 2020. Under Clear Sky he also became the group's editor-in-chief, and in November 2021 the publisher announced that his role would expand to cover new acquisitions and launches, with Nikki Belso, one of the Weekly's launch content creators, becoming the group's print production editor.

Chris Coward, who oversaw the launch and served as the Weekly's managing director, brought a commercial background from Northcliffe, Local World and Reach, including a spell as consumer sales director. After Simon Bax terminated his directorship in early 2023, Coward remained as Clear Sky's sole director. Dave Thomas, the veteran sportswriter recruited from the Herald Express after 47 years there, gave the young paper instant sporting credibility, having joined his old paper in February 1973 after training on the former Daily Mirror scheme with the old Torquay Times weekly.

Recent Developments

The paper's recent history is that of its parent group. Clear Sky's purchase of the Torbay Weekly and North Devon Gazette in 2021 was followed by the launch of the MidDevon Weekly, the relaunch of its Exeter magazine and the acquisition of The Moorlander. In July 2023 the online rebrand to the "Today" names brought the Weekly's digital identity into line with its sister titles, while the print paper kept the Torbay Weekly name that readers receive through their doors.

Through these changes the title has kept the formula set at its unusual birth: a free weekly, launched in a lockdown by a team working from dining tables and spare bedrooms, that set out to celebrate Torbay and to carry practical information to every home in the Bay, and that continues to serve Torquay, Paignton and Brixham in print and online.