Between 1957 and 1975, the Advocate had three editors: Joseph Charles "Joe" Court, William E.M "Mac" Abbott, and James "Jim" Brundson.

In 1982, a move to develop the paper into a regional newspaper called The Valley Advocate with a wider-circulation proved unsuccessful.

The paper was given away free outside of Scone, but local residents were still required to pay twenty five cents to buy a copy.

This led to the paper being published off-site in Muswellbrook, with its commercial printing division sold to a private company in 1986.

In 1987, Rural Press Limited purchased Regional Newspapers' group of publications, including the Advocate, and printing moved again, this time to the Maitland Mercury site.

Also in 2000, Rural Press sold off the Advocate's long-time headquarters to local businessmen, and moved into rented premises in 2001.

In 2007, Fairfax Media acquired Rural Press in an agreed merger, while locally, the paper's Macintosh computers were replaced with PCs.

The paper celebrated its 120th anniversary in October with the discovery of old film footage from the first few months of transmission of NBN Television, which looked at the operations of a local newspaper.