Another year passes, and the Llanelli Standard carries on with it as we celebrate our third birthday!
When we first launched our first edition back in April of 2019, we certainly couldn’t have predicted the events of the past few years that have had such a profoundly shaping effect on us, and on everyone.
Without revisiting that particularly dark part of our history, the year 2020 that no one remembers fondly,those dog days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects nevertheless are still being felt.
2020 proved to be an exceptionally challenging year for us, as we shifted priorities from producing print editions to instead delivering weekly digital editions during the first lockdown, returning to print editions in August of that year.
The problems with delivering print media during that time were profound, as our team was decentralised, working from home as so many others were, but especially due to how many businesses ceased advertising during this period.
That isn’t to say that we didn’t understand their decision, the reasoning was fair and logical; why spend your money on advertising when your own business isn’t trading, or is seeing heavily reduced custom?
The problem remained, however, that when the worst had passed, many of these businesses weren’t quite so needful of print advertising as before, in the immediate wake of lockdowns ending and public footfall flourishing.
Unfortunately for us, as we approach our third full year of operation, and despite being in a better position than the worst of 2020 for a time, a new issue arose; with the global supply chain affected by the ongoing complications of the pandemic, the cost of creating print editions (and the cost of most things, as we all unfortunately know) has been steadily creeping up and up, and may become a very grave problem if this trend continues.
Keith Evans-Hurley, director of Red Brand Media, the Llanelli Standard’s parent company, said:
“We’re happy that we’ve been producing print editions right up to our third birthday, despite the difficulties involved.”
“We’re proud that we’ve expanded during this time, keeping our Newyddion Lle and Aktualności Polskie features.”
As a free community newspaper, we’re committed to never requiring you, the reader, to spend money to pick up our print editions. That is simply not a future we will accept.
Our goal is to promote the things that interest you, to cover the subjects you want covered, and to keep holding your interest throughout. Our focus has always been and will always be the immediate community.
But if we are to keep doing what we do, then we need to meet the new challenges being put before us.
We implore local business owners to consider working with us, and passionate individuals with a taste for writing, the community, or journalism to get involved with us, or even to consider donating to keep us going, if you’re able to.
We hope to keep doing this for you for as long as we possibly can, and we’re going to treat this Spring as a fresh start, with a positive view to the future!
