Sunderland Echo

Sunderland Echo

The Sunderland Echo is a daily newspaper serving the Sunderland, South Tyneside and East Durham areas of North East England. The paper was founded by Samuel Storey, Edward Backhouse, Edward Temperley Gourley, Charles Palmer, Richard Ruddock, Thomas Glaholm and Thomas Scott Turnbull in 1873. As of December 2018, the paper had an average daily circulation of 9,374 and retailed at 65 pence in 2014.

About Sunderland Echo in brief

Summary Sunderland EchoThe Sunderland Echo is a daily newspaper serving the Sunderland, South Tyneside and East Durham areas of North East England. The paper was founded by Samuel Storey, Edward Backhouse, Edward Temperley Gourley, Charles Palmer, Richard Ruddock, Thomas Glaholm and Thomas Scott Turnbull in 1873. The first edition of the Echo was printed in Press Lane, Sunderland on 22 December 1873; 1,000 copies were produced and sold for a halfpenny each. As of December 2018, the paper had an average daily circulation of 9,374 and retailed at 65 pence in 2014. The news coverage provided by the Echo focuses mainly on local events, including human interest, crime and court stories, as well as reports on the local League One football team, Sunderland AFC. In addition to the main newspaper, the Echo also produces a number of regular supplements and articles of specialist interest each week. The Echo is part of the Johnston Press group—one of the United Kingdom’s largest publishers of local and regional newspapers. The main newspaper rivals in the Sunderland and County Durham area include The Northern Echo, The Journal, the Hartlepool Mail and the Evening Chronicle. The Sunderland Star, a free weekly newspaper printed by The Echo, is also distributed in the city. According to independent research conducted on behalf of The Echo in 2000, the “popularity of the Echo is greater than that of all other regional newspapers put together”. The paper is also sold in Washington, Burnmoor and Durham, which are to the west of Sunderland.

Villages on the outskirts of the city, including Houghton-le-Spring, Penshaw, Fencehouses, Ryhope and Hetton-Le-Hole are included in the circulation area too. The newspaper was based at Echo House, Pennywell Industrial Estate, Sunderland, from 1976 until April 2015. It now shares a site with sister papers the HartllepoolMail and Shields Gazette at North East Business & Innovation Centre, Enterprise Park East, Sunderland,. SR5 2TA. The Echo appealed to people across the range of demographics, with between 44 and 50% of people in each socio-economic grouping being regular readers. The Saturday edition includes a leisure pull-out, featuring fashion, entertainment and restaurant reviews, while a local history nostalgia supplement, Retro, is published once a month. Nostalgia calendars, featuring photographs of Sunderland old and Seaham, are also produced. The Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette was printed on a flat-bed press in December 1873, and sold 100 copies of four-page issue at noon and 4pm, for 4penny per issue. It was designed to provide a platform for the Radical views held by Storey and his partners, it was also Sunderland’s first local daily paper. Although the 100,000-strong population of Sunderland was already served by two weekly newspapers—The Sunderland Times and The Sunderland Herald—there were no daily papers in the town at the time.