The Longford Leader is a weekly local newspaper published in Longford, a town in County Longford in the Midlands region of Ireland. It was founded as a nationalist paper in 1897 by activists J.P. Farrell and Jasper Tully.
Following the death of JP’s son Lucius in 1951, his widow, Eileen, took over the running of the newspaper. The paper remained in Farrell family ownership until 1983 when it ceased publication for nine months following an industrial dispute. However, publication recommenced after editor Eamon Magee put together a consortium of backers to acquire the paper.
In February 2002, Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) paid €9.1m to acquire the paper, which was in turn acquired by Johnston Press in 2005 as part of their acquisition of SRH’s Irish titles.
The paper was purchased from Johnstown Press by Iconic Media in a 2014 acquisition. Iconic Media is owned by Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited, which is in turn owned by The Denmark Family, with UK businessman Malcolm Denmark as the controlling shareholder.
The Leader is the main local news outlet serving the County Longford, and according to its website, reaches a weekly print, digital, and social media audience of 21,000.
The Leader is printed each Wednesday. It also operates the news site www.longfordlive.ie, which primarily features stories that appear in its print editions, though it is updated daily.
Key Facts
| Audience Share | Missing Data |
|---|---|
| Ownership Type | Private |
| Geographic Coverage | Local |
| Content Type | Paid |
| Data Publicly Available | ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc. |
Ownership
| Ownership Structure | The Leader is published by Formpress Publishing Limited, which is owned by Iconic Newspapers Limited. The parent organisation of Iconic Newspapers Limited is Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited (previously Mediaforce (Holdings) Limited). The Denmark Family is the sole owner of the media group. Malcolm Denmark, who owns 75% of shares, is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. The remaining company shares are owned by C.N. Denmark (15%), T.C. Denmark (9%), and V.M. Denmark (76%). |
|---|---|
| Voting Rights | Malcolm (M.C.) Denmark is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. |
| Individual Owner |
Media Companies / Groups
Facts
| Founding Year | 1897 |
|---|---|
| Founder |
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| CEO |
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| Editor-In-Chief |
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| Contact | Market Square N39KN82 Longford Co. Longford news@longfordleader.ie 043-3345241 www.longfordleader.ie |
| Revenue | Missing Data |
|---|---|
| Operating Profit | Missing Data |
| Advertising (in % of total funding) | Missing Data |
| Market Share | Missing Data |
| Headlines |
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| Meta Data | Historical Information about The Longford Leader was obtained from the paper’s website (longfordlive.ie), as well as from the Irish Newspaper Archives, The Dictionary of Irish Biography, and Ireland’s Eye Magazine. Information about editor Alan Walsh was obtained via longfordlive.ie Ownership and financial information was gathered from the FAME Database (Moody’s) regarding Formpress Publishing Limited, Iconic Newspapers Limited, and Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. Accurate estimation of outlet market share was not possible because reporting on income levels in Ireland is typically done at the group level rather than the individual title level. Additionally, overall revenue details for the market as a whole are not available. Accurate estimation of audience share is not possible. Although Kantar collects publicly available figures on readership for national titles, parallel figures are not available for regional and local newspapers. | |
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| Documents (PDF) |