The Ashburton Guardian is a tri-weekly newspaper published in Ashburton, New Zealand according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation in New Zealand it has a readership of approximately 11,000 and a circulation of 5,554.
[1] In 2000, the Ashburton Guardian was the first newspaper in New Zealand to go to a compact format; this was done for the Saturday edition only.
Charles Dixon and Horace Weeks started the newspaper to oppose Joseph Ivess, who had started the Evening News earlier in 1879 in support of his mayoralty campaign.
In the following year, they sold the newspaper to Edward George Wright and Hugo Friedlander, the latter of whom had beaten Ivess in the mayoral election.
As at 2015, the Ashburton Guardian is still owned by the Bell family, and that makes it one of the few independently-owned daily newspapers in New Zealand.