The Scotsman cover (11 May 2011)
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Type | Daily newspaper |
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Format | Compact |
Owner(s) | Johnston Press |
Editor | Ian Stewart |
Founded | 1817 |
Headquarters | Orchard Brae House, 30 Queensferry Road, Edinburgh |
Circulation | 22,740 (February 2016, 61.6% full price) |
Sister newspapers | Edinburgh Evening News, Scotland on Sunday |
ISSN | 0307-5850 |
OCLC number | 614655655 |
Website | scotsman |
The Scotsman is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website published from Edinburgh. It was a broadsheet until 16 August 2004. The Scotsman Publications Ltd also issues the Edinburgh Evening News and the Herald & Post series of free newspapers in Edinburgh, Fife, and West Lothian.
As of February 2016, it had an audited print circulation of 22,740, with a full-price paid-for circulation of 61.6% of this figure, about 14,000. Scotsman.com websites, including the news site, job site, property site, mobile site and others have an average of 119,672 visitors a day.
The Scotsman was launched in 1817 as a liberal weekly newspaper 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 6,000 copies.
Their premises were originally at 257 High Street on the Royal Mile.
In 1860 they obtained a purpose built office on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh designed in the Scots baronial style by the architects Peddie & Kinnear. This backed onto their original offices on the Royal Mile. The building bears the initials "JR" for John Ritchie the founder of the company. In 1902 they moved to huge new offices at the top of the street, facing onto North Bridge, designed by Dunn & Findlay (Findlay being the son of the then owner). This huge building had taken three years to build and also had connected printworks on Market Street (now the City Art Centre). The printworks connected below road level direct to Waverley Station in a highly efficient production line.