22 February 2013
Square Circular moves online and to a new community paper
Palmerston North City Council’s monthly community publication, the Square Circular will now appear in Palmerston North’s
most read community newspaper, The Tribune, from next week.
With a circulation of 44,000, The Tribune is a free weekly paper. Its parent company is the Manawatu Standard within the
Fairfax stable of publications.
Palmerston North City Council’s strategic communications manager Daniel O’Regan says motivation for the move is the
exponential growth in the online world for both information and service provision.
Increasingly, Palmerston North residents are seeking their news and information online. This has been particularly
noticeable since the introduction of smart phones. Therefore it makes sense for Council to communicate with residents
through the mediums they use which in this case is online.
The Square Circular will now have its own dedicated page that is connected to, and similar layout to: http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/your-manawatu/tribune/. Online readers will be directed to the Square Circular from the Manawatu Standard’s homepage which now boasts an
average over the last six months of 94,590 unique visitors a month and from the Manawatu Standard’s Facebook page which
has over 2000 likes. The page will go live 27th February 2013.
Daniel O’Regan says the change will also increase readership of the printed version of Square Circular. Boundary Change
residents will receive the Tribune only on the weeks in which the Square Circular is published, while rural residents
within the City’s boundaries who are subscribers of the Manawatu Standard will for the first time receive the
publication.
All delivery issues should be reported to The Tribune on 0800 835 323.
Earlier this month a trial print run was held. Manawatu Standard’s business development officer, Ken Callagher, says the
test print went really well with the printer commenting that the technical aspects worked perfectly and commented
further on the high quality look and feel of the product.
The Square Circular in the Tribune will be printed on a slightly thicker paper thereby improving the quality. It will be
an insert inside the Tribune and on the days of publication it will be the only insert.