Opotiki News

Opotiki is a small town on the south-eastern edge of the Bay of Plenty. Its first newspaper was the Opotiki Herald, which ran from 1883 to 1937. The Herald had one competitor for a short time in the nineteenth century, the Opotiki Mail, published from 1889 to 1893. In 1900 a third local newspaper started up ‑ the East Coast Guardian. This was founded by journalist Arthur Kenrick Hayward (c.1867-1914) and taken over in 1904 by William Bramwell Scott (c.1851-1917). The Scott family continued to run the Guardian until it became part of the Whakatane-based Bay of Plenty Press in October 1936.

In 1938 the Opotiki News was founded by Francis Herbert Roe (1900-1999) and William Reynolds Payne (1911-1968). Roe was a linotype operator, who had started as an apprentice on the East Coast Guardian in 1915, and Payne a printer. When the Guardian was incorporated into the Bay of Plenty Press, Roe and Payne saw an opportunity for an Opotiki-based newspaper and began the News as a free tri-weekly in order to build up their circulation. After the closure of both the Herald in 1937, and the Bay of Plenty Press at the beginning of 1939, they decided to charge threepence for the News. This saw a drop in the circulation, but despite that they managed to keep the Opotiki News going.

The News started life in a rented building in Kelly Street. Roe and Payne continued to own and manage the newspaper throughout the 1940s and 1950s, although it became a bi-weekly during the war due to the difficulties in getting paper. In the late 1950s they purchased land in Church Street and built new premises there.

From the 1960s the ownership of the Opotiki News went through a number of changes. In 1961 Roe sold his shares to Gillies Steel Smith (1920-1988) and printer Ernest (Ernie) Wells (1907-1986), although he continued to work on the newspaper until his retirement in 1973. Smith and Wells, operating as the Opotiki News Company Ltd, reduced the paper from a broadsheet to a tabloid in size the following year. Four years later, Smith sold his interest in the News to Payne and Wells. In 1968 the last founder, Payne, died and his shares were split between his printer son-in-law Jon Warwick Tilley (?-2012), accountant George Cooper (1923-2016) and Wells.

In 1971 Wells resigned, which left Tilley and Cooper as the proprietors. In 1983, printer David Kitching acquired the Opotiki News. Five years later it was sold to Stuart and Elizabeth (Beth) Dunlop and the Daily Post of Rotorua. It was subsequently purchased by the Beacon Printing and Publishing Company in 1996. Beacon Printing had a long history in the local area, having been formed in 1939 to publish the Bay of Plenty Beacon, now known as the Whakatane Beacon.

As of 2020, the Opotiki News continued to be published by the Beacon Group, coming out on Tuesdays and Thursdays.