The MNA has one of the fastest-growing web networks in the regional press, with 3.28 million average monthly unique users to expressandstar.com and shropshirestar.com – growing significantly yearly.

Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie founded the Express & Star in Wolverhampton in the 1880s along with a group of radical Liberal Party members, including Thomas Graham.

By the 1930s, the circulation was more than 100,000, and the paper was part of a newspaper war that saw readers offered all manners of inducement to boost sales, such as tea sets and holiday tokens.

Until 1963, the MNA published the Express & Star, Wolverhampton Chronicle, plus the Saturday football paper, all set in a conventional hot metal composing room and printed on five letterpress machines.

In 1964, plans were made to hive off 19,000 copies of the Salop edition to create the Shropshire Star, published at a new photo-composed offset printing plant in Ketley.

The board saw an opportunity with the growth of Dawley New Town – later renamed Telford – and produced a successful news and advertising product to serve a county that is a mixture of agriculture and industrial areas.

In December 2012, Midland News Association also launched its recruitment agency, Star Employment Services, which operates from the MNA's headquarters in Queen Street, Wolverhampton.