Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Traditional values inspired takeover of the KM Group
New owners committed to highest standards
The new owner of the Gazette and Faversham News has committed to supporting the “high journalistic values” enshrined in the newspapers.
Edward Iliffe, whose company Iliffe Media bought the entire shareholding of the KM Media Group last month, said the “very similar” ethos of both businesses inspired the takeover.
It was the latest stage in the expansion of Iliffe Media, following the launch of the Cambridge Independent in 2016 and acquisition of 13 titles from Johnston Press earlier this year.
Mr Iliffe said: “The values of the KM Group are very similar to where we have come from. It is much more locally focused.
“We are not here for the short term. The intention is to create a trusted, valued and useful local media where high journalistic values are respected by the readers and advertisers alike.
“In KM these values have been enshrined for many years and make a good fit with the other Iliffe Media papers, both geographically and philosophically.
“I do not believe these aspirations are greatly different from when these titles were established and it is only the method of distribution that has evolved.”
Mr Iliffe has a family history in printing going back to the 1820s.
It was his great-great-grandfather, William Isaac Iliffe, who launched his family’s first newspaper, the Midland Daily Telegraph, in 1891, which became the present Coventry Telegraph.
The long family history mirrors that of the KM Media Group, which also owns radio station kmfm and is launching KMTV in partnership with the University of Kent on Freeview this summer.
The Kent Messenger was founded as the Maidstone Tele- graph in 1859 and taken over by Barham Pratt Boorman, the cofounder of the Kent Examiner & The Ashford Chronicle, in 1890.
The Boorman family owned the group for four generations. Its longest-running paper, the Kentish Gazette, was launched as the Kentish Post in 1717 and was the first newspaper in Kent. It was acquired in 1980.
KM Media Group chairman Geraldine Allinson, the fourthgeneration of her family to run the business, said the deal with Iliffe would allow KM to continue to evolve and bring about muchneeded investment to maintain its independence and continue to serve the people of Kent with trusted news and other valued content.
It also enables KM, which employs about 270 people, to resolve the long-standing issues surrounding its closed final salary pension scheme.
Mr Iliffe added: “The ambition is to continue to invest in new technologies, which will ensure the future of local newspapers, radio and TV and associated websites.
“Whether this is on a screen or paper or both is not important – the overall audience is.”