THE Western Plains App has just marked their first birthday and with reader numbers this week cracking 6,300 the team is eyeing off the champagne in the fridge. 

"It's pretty pleasing to see people finding, exploring and staying with the app," said Managing Editor Lee O'Connor. 

"We really didn't know how it would go so it's exciting when you speak to people you've never met and they say 'Yes I've got the App, it's great.'" 

Mrs O'Connor, who also owns and operates the Coonamble Times newspaper, says part of the idea behind the app was to see if it could provide a "bit of ballast" for country newspapers against the rising tide of centralised and syndicated city-based news. 



"Country town newspapers are the traditional gatherers and sharers of hyper-local news, and towns who continue to value and support them reap the benefits of that trusted on-the-ground source of information," she said. 

"Those newspapers are not dead by a long shot but let's face it, there is a whole cohort of people who like to read things on their phones every day of the week no matter where they are, and they deserve to have local news from a reliable source," Mrs O'Connor said.  

"So the Western Plains App is an experiment to see if even little home-grown small town publishers can serve those audiences as well." 

The experiment began in 2019 with Lee searching for a suitable platform and, as well as being engaging and easy to use, security for users was a high priority. 

"I knew it needed to avoid being too connected to social media where scams and trolling and fake news are relentless, and I thought we should find something more protected than the open seas of the world wide web," said Mrs O'Connor. 

After lots of research and a recommendation from a government-funded Digital Adviser, Lee found the Local Independent Media App (LIMA), a platform that was first proven in New Zealand before being taken up in Australia. 

"When we first started there were about three or four in the whole country, mostly serving single towns in high population areas so we weren't sure how one app covering a vast rural region with only small towns would go," Mrs O'Connor said. 

"I've always worked in small towns and spent a lot of time in regional positions across the western plains so I knew that's what I wanted to promote." 

"So far our feedback has been that people love hearing about what's happening up the road as well as in their own backyard, and while all the towns are unique, there's a lot of common ground," she said. "From our analytics we know that more than a third of our readers are in that 18 to 35 year bracket but we've got users right through to grey nomads trekking around the region." 

On current figures the Western Plains App is already reaching 17.5% of all people over 15 years within the eleven shires in the licence and is growing at an average of 100 to 200 new readers each week. 

Not bad for a small-town start-up that kicked off mid-pandemic. 

"We've been very fortunate that the federal government supported us with access to professional advice and helped with licence fees for the first six months," Mrs O'Connor said. 

"A few of the local councils saw the potential and are good supporters already." 

"Now we have Facebook and Walkley Foundation support to employ journalists for several months. It's a real boost and very exciting to welcome reporters from different towns across the Western Plains." 

"The next challenge is to talk to more businesses and groups around the region about using the Western Plains App as a way to reach their markets and to come on board with listings and banners," she said. 

"We're hoping our Christmas present will be to have at least a dozen or more business members in each town."