THE Oxford Mail has been crowned the best news brand in the country by parent company Newsquest.

Newsquest is the largest regional news publisher in the UK with a portfolio of more than 169 news brands including19 daily papers, 150 weekly papers and magazines, published in print and online.

With an audience of almost 30 million monthly online users and six million readers a week in print, our content is read by a substantial proportion of the UK population.

Newsquest  chief executive Henry Faure Walker singled out the Oxford Mail’s as news brand of the year. Photographer Jon Lewis was named best in the company.

Mr Lewis, who has worked with us for 22 years, took some of the best pictures of the year to appear in the paper and on our website, including hard-hitting imagery from drugs raids, a major crop fire, videos and galleries.

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As if those weren’t enough, our head of newspaper sales Tom Mitchell, advertisement sales leader Shane Harding and leaflet distribution manager Claire Kiernan also won gongs in the 2016 Newsquest Excellence Awards.

Overall, the Oxford Mail claimed five out of 13 awards on offer across the whole country.

Mr Faure Walker said the Oxford Mail team’s hard work was reflected in the fact our online audience grew by more than 40 per cent in 2016 while also having the second-highest circulation performance for a daily Newsquest paper. He paid tribute to Jon Lewis’s ‘great photography’ and Tom Mitchell’s leadership in newspaper sales.

Views of the Oxford Mail website have risen rapidly over the last year, and in January we had 6,710,735 visits, making it our best month ever for website views.