subsequently promoted by the sports event company Unipublic and did not return to the Basque Country until 2011. Expansion The 1980s brought geographic expansion, as El Correo began to publish editions outside the Bilbao metro area and so it purchased El Diario Montañés, a newspaper in Santander. The paper now publishes nine local editions: five within the province of Vizcaya, which includes Bilbao, and one each serving the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa (sharing territory with El Diario Vasco), Burgos (in the city of Miranda de Ebro) and La Rioja. In April 2014, El Correo began to be published and distributed in the United Arab Emirates.El Correo, El Diario Vasco and El Diario Montañés are now owned by Grupo Vocento, a nationwide communications company that also owns ABC in Madrid and Las Provincias. The editor-in-chief of El Correo is Juan Carlos Martínez Gauna and its publisher is Bilbao Editorial. The paper is published in tabloid format. The daily comic strip Don Celes (by Luis del Olmo, originally published in La Gaceta del Norte) is now a symbol of the newspaper. In 2012 El Correo was named as the Newspaper of the Year in the category of regional newspapers by the European Newspapers Congress. Circulation The circulation of El Correo'' was 134,000 copies in 1993. It rose to 138,000 copies in 1994. Its circulation was 130,042 copies in 2002. It fell to 128,000 copies in 2003. The paper had a circulation of 112,588 copies in 2006. The 2008 circulation of the paper was 118,107 copies. References External links Official website 1910 establishments in Spain Grupo Vocento Mass media in Bilbao Daily newspapers published in Spain Newspapers established in 1910 Spanish-language newspapers Basque companies