About us

About the paper

The Wairarapa Times-Age is published daily Monday to Saturday.

The newspaper converted from an afternoon broadsheet to a morning compact in 2011.

It has an audited circulation of 5,812 per day (ABC net audit to 31 December 2013). Daily readership is strong with an approximate readership of 11,000 every day of the week (Nielsen CMI, based on AP15+ Q1-Q4 2013).

The company also publishes Midweek, a weekly community newspaper which is delivered free to 20,663 homes throughout the Wairarapa district and the Bush Telegraph, a weekly community newspaper delivered free to 8,360 homes throughout the Tararua district. Midweek is the Wairarapa's largest free community newspaper in terms of circulation and readership. It has a readership of 34,000 per edition.

The Wairarapa Times-Age is the dominant print media in the region and can offer advertisers a dual daily and community weekly advertising strategy. The combined readership is superior to any other competitors.

The Wairarapa Times-Age is an active member of the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA), Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB), the New Zealand Community Newspapers Association (NZCNA), Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association, (PANPA) and the International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA).


History

The first newspaper to be published in the region was the Wairarapa Mercury, which commenced printing on 5 January 1867, and changed its name to the Wairarapa Standard on 17 August 1872. This newspaper ceased publishing due to a major fire on 31 March 1937.

The Wairarapa News first started publishing on 21 October 1874 but was also disrupted by a major fire, during 1877.

Other newspapers included the Newsletter (commenced 27 May 1876) and the Wairarapa Register (commenced 19 November 1877). The Register stopped publishing due to a fire on 23 July 1878.

The Wairarapa News re-emerged on 30 October 1878 and this is the oldest direct link with the Wairarapa Times-Age. The Wairarapa News merged with the Wairarapa Free Press (which had commenced on 11 September 1878) and together they formed the Wairarapa Daily on 4 November 1878 and then the Wairarapa Daily Times on 15 March 1892.

Another newspaper, The Wairarapa Star commenced publishing on 21 May 1881 and changed to the Wairarapa Age on 14 April 1902. The Wairarapa Age and Wairarapa Daily Times amalgamated on 1 April 1938 and commenced publishing the Wairarapa Times-Age, from our purpose built newspaper site.

This striking triangular shaped building of art deco design was copied from the Miami Herald's newspaper building. A management buy-out of a majority of shares occurred during 1986.

In July 2002 the Wairarapa Times-Age was acquired by the Wilson & Horton Newspaper group, now known as APN Holdings NZ Ltd.

On June 29 2015 the Wairarapa Times-Age formally passed into independent ownership, under publisher Andrew Denholm.