Newport Matters production costs

It is important that a public body, such as a council, communicates regularly with the people and communities it serves.

Newport Matters is Newport City Council's newspaper for residents and is produced six times a year.

It has a distribution of approximately 69,000 copies per edition and is published, printed and delivered to every address in Newport for around 5p per edition per resident.

Many Newport residents do not have access to the internet or digital news mediums and research shows that Newport Matters is still valued in printed form.

Efforts are made to minimise production costs including regular tenders and obtaining advertising income.

All editorial content and design is produced in-house although no council staff are employed only to work on Newport Matters.

Its production forms part of a wider remit of communications including PR, media relations, social media, crisis management, website content, marketing and corporate design.

Newport Matters is printed by Newsquest Media Group but is subject to a regular tendering process.

Residents receive 6 editions a year for an annual cost to the council of 30 pence per person – less than half the cost of a second class stamp (75p).

View and download editions of Newport Matters.

 

	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
Number of editions per year	6	6	5 (May edition cancelled - Covid-19)	6	6
Gross printing cost for 6 editions	£16,005	£12,393.50	£10,357.13	£12,872	£18,211.81
Gross delivery cost for 6 editions	£25,733.63	£25,824.90	£22,138.42	£26,664	£29,164.98
Advertising income for 6 editions	£800	£0	£635	£1,720	£2,080
Annual net cost for 6 editions	£40,997.95	£38,552.76	£31,860.55	£37,816	£45,269.79
Average net cost per edition	£6,829.66	£6,425.46	£6,372.11	£6,302.67	£9,059.36
Average net cost per resident per year	27p	26p	21p	24p	30p
Average net cost per resident per edition	4.5p	4p	4p	4p	6p