TWO top managers in Newsquest (North East), publishers of The Northern Echo, Darlington & Stockton Times; Advertiser Series have been celebrated in awards of the publishing group's UK operations.

Managing director David Kelly was named as the group's outstanding managing director/publisher and received the Newsquest Media Group's 2004 Excellence Award.

This is the highest internal accolade a Newsquest senior manager can achieve and represents excellence in all aspects of service and performance.

The company's commercial director, Ian Clarke, received the 2004 Excellence Award as the top senior advertisement sales manager. He also won the award last year.

The awards were presented by chairman and chief executive Paul Davidson at the annual Newsquest Media Group Excellence Awards in London.

The criteria for judging awards include leadership, supporting local initiatives, customer care, news content and newspaper quality, performance against business plan and the previous trading period, sales initiatives and results, and circulation and distribution.

This is the third successive year in which senior managers at Newsquest (North East) have figured in the awards. In their launch year, the Excellence Award for editors was won by Peter Barron, editor of The Northern Echo and Advertiser Series.

Commercial director Ian Clarke leaves Newsquest (North East) at the end of 2004 after nearly four years to become director of sales and marketing at NMG's Glasgow-based publishing centre.

Mr Kelly said: "We are very sorry to lose Ian, who has made a major contribution to our business, but we are delighted that NMG has appointed him to this key group post."

Newsquest Media Group, a Gannett company, is the UK's second-largest publisher of regional and local newspapers. It publishes more than 300 newspapers, including 17 dailies, has a weekly readership of 13.6 million and circulation of 10.8 million copies. The group has 9,100 employees and 11 newspaper printing sites.