The Scotsman
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The Scotsman is a Scottish national newspaper, published in Edinburgh. Since August 16, 2004, it has been printed in compact format. Its sister Sunday publication, which remains broadsheet, is titled Scotland on Sunday. The Scotsman Publications Ltd also produces the Edinburgh Evening News and the Herald & Post series of free newspapers in Edinburgh, Fife, West Lothian and Perth.
The Scotsman was launched [link] in 1817 as a liberal weekly by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren in response to the "unblushing subservience" of competing newspapers to the Edinburgh establishment. The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1850, The Scotsman was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulation of 6000 copies.
In 1953 the newspaper was bought by Canadian millionaire Roy Thomson who was in the process of building an enormous media empire. The paper was in 1995 bought by billionaires Barclay Brothers for £85 million. They moved the newspaper from its landmark Edinburgh office on North Bridge, which is now an upmarket hotel, to new offices on Holyrood Road, near where the Scottish Parliament Building was subsequently built. While under their ownership, controversial British journalist Andrew Neil, a former editor of The Sunday Times, was publisher of the newspaper, in addition to The Business and The Spectator magazine.
The Scotsman was a staunch supporter of Scottish devolution but has since been critical of the Scottish Parliament. While not aligned to any political party, it remains as anti-establishment today as in its inception. It has been a strong opponent of the decision to abolish the Scottish Regiments.
The Scotsman has a daily circulation of around 67,000 [link]. It has fallen fairly dramatically over the past few years, in common with other titles. The current editor John McGurk started in the autumn of 2004 and has had some success in arresting the decline in circulation.
In December 2005 it was announced that the paper, along with the other Scotsman Publications titles, was sold to Edinburgh based newspaper group Johnston Press in a £160 million deal ending Neil's ten-year relationship with the newspaper. [link]
This takeover has resulted in a large decrease of staff levels and an increase in cost control and business efficiency, allowing the Scotsman to become more profitable. In turn, this should make the company better prepared for the expected continuation of decreases in advertising revenues within the British newspaper industry (due in part to online advertising revenue expected to overtake that of national newspapers in the next few years). These cost control plans are in line with Johnston Press planning for the future and why they have yet again had a record profit year in the difficult newspaper publishing environment. [link] [link]
The Scotsman is sometimes jokingly referred to as "The Hootsmon", particularly by journalists on its rival papers The Herald and the Sunday Herald.
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