Roscommon Champion

pflanagan132

What's the latest on the demise of the Champion?

In my opinion

Is there any truth in the story that TCH (owners of Roscommon Herald) sold the Newry Democrat to the Alpha Group (owners of the Roscommon Champion) following the closure of the Champion.

Was Champion closure part of the deal?

Hopefully the Roscommon media will deal with this story!!

pflanagan132

I doubt if either The Roscommon Herald or Roscommon People will bother to look into that. It suits them both that the Champion is gone.
Maybe now the Herald might improve it's coverage of the area around Roscommon town.
Living down the country, I was a subscriber to the Champion, and had only recently paid my subscription. I doubt if a phone call to Lord Kilclooney will elicit an immediate refund
Maybe I should have known better.

yessam

In hindsight, it looked like the Champion was being wound down the last back. There seemed to be less on it every other week. I would'nt be surprised if there was some plan behind the closing of the Champion. I hope the Herald improves now.

dec25532

In my opinion wrote: »

Is there any truth in the story that TCH (owners of Roscommon Herald) sold the Newry Democrat to the Alpha Group (owners of the Roscommon Champion) following the closure of the Champion.

Was Champion closure part of the deal?

Hopefully the Roscommon media will deal with this story!!

Heard the same and this is not without substance. It's a shame that a newspaper with such a long history in Roscommon town and South Roscommon in general is allowed close down and there doesn't seem to be a lot of uproar locally over this decision.

THEJDT

In my opinion wrote: »

Is there any truth in the story that TCH (owners of Roscommon Herald) sold the Newry Democrat to the Alpha Group (owners of the Roscommon Champion) following the closure of the Champion.

Was Champion closure part of the deal?

Hopefully the Roscommon media will deal with this story!!

Yes this is true, the deal was announced a few days after Roscommon was closed.

I've seen plenty of Alpha's papers before, and they all look like crap, just have a look at their online edition of The Leader, it looks like something from the 70s, only crappier.

TCH are skint and print all their papers in Cork, I imagine it suits them well to get out of Northern Ireland and in return Alpha move out of Roscommon.
Nice and cosy.

I wonder what the people of Newry and south Armagh make of UUP Lord Kilclooney owning the Newry Democrat.

Worse still I wonder what the Newry staff make of it, will Jonathan Taylor read his opening speech from his Blackberry like I heard his did his farewell one to Roscommon?

Also remember reading in the Sunday World that the Newry staff offered to buy the paper from TCH, surely even from a PR point of view it would have looked better for TCH to sell to the staff rather than a rival, or very conveniently, their now former rival. Strange eh?

Steelydanman72

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