About Wangaratta Chronicle

Wangaratta Chronicle

The Wangaratta Chronicle is a tri-weekly newspaper published in Wangaratta, in north-east Victoria — the paper of the Rural City of Wangaratta and the north-east's regional capital. First published on 10 September 1884, it is one of the historic titles of the Victorian country press, and the flagship of North East Media — the Higgins family's fourth-generation regional publishing group, part of the Provincial Press Group.

Overview

The Wangaratta Chronicle is the newspaper of Wangaratta — the north-east's regional capital, the city at the junction of the Ovens and King rivers, the centre of the region's wine, tobacco (historically), beef, and manufacturing industries. Wangaratta is the service city for the north-east: the gateway to the Victorian Alps, the King Valley wine region, and the historic gold towns of Beechworth and Bright. The Chronicle is its paper — published three times a week, with digital access.

The district the Chronicle serves is one of Victoria's richest: the King Valley — the wine valley of the Prosecco Road; the Ovens Valley's tobacco history and its reinvention; the Victorian Alps — Mount Hotham and Falls Creek — and the snow economy; the Murray River at Yarrawonga; and the manufacturing city itself, the historic mills giving way to the modern industrial estates. The paper has chronicled the north-east's transformations: the tobacco era, the wine boom, the alpine tourism, and the regional capital's growth.

The paper is published by North East Media — the award-winning news and information company based at 37 Rowan Street, Wangaratta, with offices at Myrtleford, Mansfield, Euroa, and Hawthorn in Melbourne. The group also publishes to the wine, forests, timber, and tourism industries from Adelaide and the New South Wales Snowy Mountains, and its mastheads span the north-east's towns — Mansfield, Myrtleford, Euroa — each with its own paper under the group's umbrella.

History

On 10 September 1884, George Maxwell and John Bowser began the bi-weekly Wangaratta Chronicle — in competition with the Wangaratta and Benalla Despatch, founded on 21 March 1862 by John Rowan. William Thomas (Bill) Higgins, an apprentice for the Chronicle from the age of 12, bought the Despatch from Reginald Grantley Norton on 1 January 1921 — having left the Chronicle in his early twenties to open a print shop and prepare for a career in journalism.

The two rival papers were merged on 27 March 1937, and the newly formed Wangaratta Chronicle Despatch began circulating bi-weekly — the Higgins family's paper from that day forward. The Chronicle Despatch became a tri-weekly publication on 3 January 1950, then an afternoon publication on 2 July 1957. It became a Monday-to-Friday daily on 1 April 1958 — the north-east's daily paper — then from 27 September 1963 was no longer published on Wednesdays. It became a tri-weekly publication again from 29 December 1975, the rhythm it keeps today: published three times a week, with digital access.

Bill Higgins died on 20 March 1949, and his son William Francis Higgins became his heir. The company is still owned by the Higgins family, managed by Edward Higgins, a fourth-generation family member.

North East Media's original publishing business was founded by W.T. Higgins when he purchased the Wangaratta Despatch in 1921 and the Wangaratta Chronicle in 1937. The publisher's mastheads span Mansfield, Myrtleford, Euroa, and Melbourne. In 2023, the parent Provincial Press Group grew substantially with the acquisition of seven ACM newspapers in the NSW central west — Parkes, Forbes, Canowindra, Grenfell, Cowra, Boorowa, and Young — deemed outside ACM's key markets. The acquisition made the Higgins family's group a cross-border regional publisher: the north-east Victorian titles joined by the central-west New South Wales papers, each keeping its local masthead under the group's ownership.

The group has invested in digital transformation: family-owned North East Media migrated 30 websites to the Atex MyType platform in four months — digital publishing, subscriber management, and print automation under a single ecosystem — described by chief executive Edward Higgins as a major milestone for the business.

The group employs over 60 people directly in the north-east and another 50 through associated Provincial Press Group companies. Its associated companies publish specialist journals and magazines to the farming, wine, viticulture, forests, and timber industries from Adelaide and Melbourne. North East Media owns 50 per cent of the Mail Newspaper Group — a partnership with Star News Group comprising four community newspaper mastheads in the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges, with offices in Healesville, Monbulk, and Yarra Junction, and a quarterly tourist publication. The group is, in short, a diversified regional media business: newspapers, magazines, tourism titles, and digital platforms, all family-owned.

Content

The Wangaratta Chronicle provides comprehensive local news, sports coverage, and community events for the Wangaratta region. Its journalism spans:

• Regional capital news: the Rural City of Wangaratta council, the city's development, and the north-east's regional issues.
• Wine and agriculture: the King Valley wine region, the beef and cropping districts, and the rural industries of the north-east.
• Alpine gateway: the Victorian Alps, the snow season, and the tourism economy of Bright, Myrtleford, and the high country — the winter coverage that serves the north-east's alpine towns and the summer's high-country tourism.
• Sport: the Ovens and Murray Football League, cricket, and the district's clubs — the Saturday record of the north-east's great football league, from the senior sides to the junior grades.
• Community: the schools, the events, the milestones, and the social record of the north-east's capital.

Coverage & Audience

The Wangaratta Chronicle is a tri-weekly newspaper serving Wangaratta and the north-east Victorian region, published in English, in print with digital access through its official website. The tri-weekly rhythm — the paper that arrives three times a week — is the heartbeat of the regional capital: the news of the valleys and the Alps, delivered to the north-east's doorsteps. Its audience is the residents of the north-east — the townspeople of the regional capital, the wine growers and farmers of the valleys, and the alpine communities — who rely on the paper for the region's news, sporting coverage, and community record. In a region defined by the rivers, the valleys, and the Alps, the tri-weekly is the rhythm of the north-east: the paper that arrives with the week's news, three times over.

Ownership

The Wangaratta Chronicle is published by North East Media — the Higgins family's fourth-generation regional publishing group, founded by W.T. Higgins in 1921, managed by chief executive Edward Higgins, and part of the Provincial Press Group. The group remains an independent family-owned newspaper company operating in the leading towns of north-east Victoria.

Digital Presence

The Wangaratta Chronicle operates online at wangarattachronicle.com.au — its official website — with digital access complementing the tri-weekly print edition. The group's 30 websites were migrated to the Atex MyType platform, bringing digital publishing and subscriber management under a single ecosystem. The paper's historic editions (1914–1918) are digitised on Trove as part of the National Library's Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program.

For Wangaratta, the Chronicle remains what it has been since 1884: the north-east's own paper — the tri-weekly record of the regional capital, from Maxwell and Bowser's bi-weekly to the Higgins family's fourth generation, still publishing from Rowan Street, Wangaratta, still the daily-turned-tri-weekly heart of the north-east, in print three times a week, and online daily, from the north-east's own newsroom, still family-owned, still the north-east's paper.