Chris Bullivant

Chris Bullivant Sr., 2011

Chris Bullivant Sr is a British newspaper publisher who with his wife Pat launched the UK's first free daily title, the Daily News, in October 1984.[1]

Having set up in excess of 74 newspapers, the Bullivants have now sold off much of their business but still run Bullivant Media, which in 2011 was the 15th-largest newspaper publisher in the country.[2] They continue to publish weekly newspapers across Warwickshire, Worcestershire and parts of the West Midlands in the southern conurbations around Birmingham and they also publish various award winning magazines [2] including Your Wedding, InsideOut, Flavour and Exclusive Homes. He also released a pair of popular broadsheet Gazettes.

In 2010 Bullivant launched a part paid-for weekly newspaper in Birmingham. Called the Birmingham Press,[3] and accompanied by a free edition, The Birmingham Free Press, it was intended to rival Trinity Mirror's Birmingham Post,[4] but after only a few months the paper went into liquidation with total debts of £347,796.[5] Bullivant blamed the newspaper's collapse on a lack of support from estate agents advertising in the city.[6] Bullivant Media Limited (Company number 06850612) was liquidated in September 2022 due to insolvency with creditor’s claims totalling just under 2 million pounds sterling.

References

Notes

1. Franklin (2013), Chapter 14
2. Newspaper Society Intelligence unit 1 Jan 2011
3. Jon Slattery (22 June 2010). "Jon Slattery: Chris Bullivant launches Birmingham Free Press". Jon Slattery. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
4. "Bullivant: Birmingham Press will work or it's my Waterloo". Press Gazette. 23 April 2010. Archived from the original on 19 March 2014. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
5. "Bullivant Pays Out Just 2p in the Pound", Birmingham Mail, 14 July 2012, archived from the original on 11 June 2014, retrieved 18 November 2013 – via HighBeam
6. "Bullivant admits defeat in Brum newspaper war", HoldtheFrontPage, 8 October 2010, retrieved 18 November 2013

Bibliography

• Franklin, Bob (2013), "A right free for all! Competition, soundbite journalism and developments in the local free press", in Franklin, Bob (ed.), Local Journalism and Local Media: Making the Local News (Google eBook), Routledge, ISBN 978-1-134-18119-3

External links

• Bullivant Media official site
• History of British Newspapers Archived 24 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine