Blacket Turner & Co Ltd. was created in the late 1980s as a holding company for various media interests developing alongside the Newbury Weekly News.

The company name commemorates Walter Blacket and Thomas Wheildon Turner, founders of the newspaper in 1867. It also represents a revival of the corporate identity in use from the company's first registration in 1910 until its restructuring in 1968.

Today, Blacket Turner continues to be owned by the original founding family, five generations of whom have served in executive appointments in the company.

The Newbury Weekly News occupies a unique position in the community of West Berkshire, where it has been the dominant local newspaper for 138 years. Unlike the majority of provincial titles founded in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Newbury Weekly News has remained family owned, independent and successful. In the first editorial in 1867 the founding editor, T. W. Turner proclaimed that: "It will be our endeavour to refrain from advocating the views of any party or sect, but rather give an opportunity for all sides to be heard, without ourselves being committed to any."

Each week, the Newbury Weekly News features hundreds of articles generated over an area of nearly 300 square miles with a population of around 150,000. Local authority decisions, court and crime reports, industrial and commercial news, sport, school activities, village news, traffic incidents, arts reviews, society meetings, ... the subjects are legion. The stories are gathered by a newsroom staff of 25, supported by a network of loyal village correspondents upon which the paper has depended for rural news since its inception.

The new printing press recently installed at the Newbury Weekly News headquarters is a single width, double plate round web offset Goss Universal 70 press capable of printing up to 96 tabloid pages in one pass with colour on every page. Page reception is by electronic means with a fully automatic Agfa computer-to-plate installation. The press can print up to 48 tabloid pages in straight mode at up to 70,000 copies per hour, or more than 48 tabloid pages in collect mode up to 30,000 copies per hour. Facilities are available post-press to collate and insert products at a speed of 25,000 copies per hour.

For contract newspaper printing inquiries, please contact Eric Lowe, Newbury Weekly News, Newspaper House, Faraday Road, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 2DW, telephone (01635) 524111.