company. However, the last link to the original founder, Samuel Storey, disappeared in 1999, when Johnston Press took over the business in May that year. The Sunderland Echo is still published by Northeast Press, although Johnston Press—the nation's second largest regional publisher—now owns the whole company. In September 2012 it was announced the multimillion-pound press hall was to close, with the loss of 81 jobs, and printing operations moved to Sheffield. On Saturday, 3 November, the final Echo was printed in Sunderland. The Echo was based at Echo House, Pennywell Industrial Estate, Sunderland, from 1976 until April 2015. On-line revolution The Echo's new-look website was launched in February 2007, while a digital editing suite was created within the office at the same time. The audio-visual equipment allows reporters to both write about and film stories as they happen, and the articles can be published on-line within seconds. Statistics show that almost 80,000 people visited the Echos website in January 2007, and this figure rose to 216,000 by January 2008. The website is updated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with stories including football match reports and football transfer rumours among the most popular. Slideshows, videos and podcasts are also included on the site in addition to the news of the day. Awards and recognition The Echo has won numerous accolades, as well as government praise, for its campaigning journalism, specialist writing, community work, photographic images and appeals for good causes over the decades. Examples of notable writing include a 2006 campaign highlighting the threat posed by bogus callers to the elderly and a 2005 campaign to protect 999 crews from being attacked on duty, which both received official praise in Parliament. A 1996 drug education campaign, which included the creation of a telephone service for tip-offs about suspected local drug dealers, was also highly praised. The Newspaper Society named the Echo as its Campaigning Newspaper of the Year for the Drug Busters drive, and the campaign also won an award from the International Newspaper Marketing Association. In the 135 years of its existence, the Echo has become part of the culture of the North East of England and a replica branch office of the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette was built at the open air Beamish Museum in County Durham in 1991. Designed to show visitors how the newspaper would have operated in around 1913, the life-size