THOSE LIVING in the KA7 postcode area of Ayr may have noticed an A5 glossy magazine called Community Times landing on their doormats in recent months. It contains a selection of stories about local happenings, such as the recent Rock At The Racecourse gig featuring Deacon Blue and The Saw Doctors.

Between advertorials masquerading as human-interest pieces there are puzzles, recipes, record reviews and numerous adverts for local businesses. In short, it is frothy stuff; far more direct marketing than high-end magazine.

Yet it is part of a new wave in publishing that could well wash over a rock near you in the near future. It is one of a number of "hyperlocal" newsletters and magazines to be launched recently.

Driven by a peculiar combination of big businesses and grassroots start-ups, this kind of publishing is creating a fourth tier beneath national, regional and local publications and is focusing on smaller communities than anyone has targeted in years.

In Edinburgh the newspaper group Johnston Press has been quietly rolling out free monthly Gazette titles for districts such as Leith, Portobello, Morningside, Bruntsfield, and Stockbridge.

And in Glasgow a new group called Premier Publishing has launched free monthlies Southside News and West End News, and plans to follow up with equivalents for the north and east of the city in the near future.

Former BBC reporter David Eyre has made a success out of G41, a paid-for monthly newspaper aimed at the Pollokshields and Shawlands areas in Glasgow's southside. It is a not-for-profit community initiative that circulates 3000 copies a month. Eyre is now looking at similar monthlies for G5 (Gorbals) and G42 (Govanhill).

Then there is The Digger, the weekly newsletter that has made its name by exposing criminals and corruption in areas of north Glasgow such as Springburn and Balornock. As a hard-hitting title that carries no advertising, its niche market is about the only thing it has in common with the Community Times. At last count, however, it was selling about 11,000 copies a week and has been extending to other parts of the city.

In Aberfeldy, as reported several months ago, community newsletter Comment is aiming to launch as a template for franchises around Scotland. Its editor, Brendan Murphy, and his business partner, former Sunday Times chief investigative journalist Brian Hounam, have been in discussions with several potential franchisees and two major newspaper groups with a view to cross-promotion.

If they want to succeed, however, they will have to get into areas before the Community Times. Ayr is one of about 140 franchises around the UK. the first being launched in south Wales three years ago. Although it is the only Scottish title to date, it will be followed by Arbroath, Perth and Kirkintilloch and Lenzie in the coming weeks.

Franchisees pay almost £7000 to buy into the scheme, for which they get a monthly template that contains some features and national adverts, together with a website. They then fill the rest of the editorial and sell advertising space to local businesses. If the company's promotional materials are to be believed, each title should produce earnings of between £30,000 and £90,000 a year.

As marketing director Jonathan Gibbs explains, the opportunity that the company saw was to target areas that were more local than most local newspapers could cover.

"We target areas of around 10,000 homes with each magazine. The local' competition normally goes for somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 households," he says.

Tim Bowdler, chief executive of Johnston Press, says that such area-specific content is attractive both to readers and advertisers alike.

"They are particularly valuable in high-street retail," he says. "Butchers and bakers would not advertise in a local paper because they would reach too many readers who are too far away to be their customers. The cost of getting to the people in their actual area would be very high per head."

Hence Johnston began launching these titles a few years ago. It started with South Yorkshire mining towns, taking advantage of surplus stories from its bigger title the Doncaster Free Press, before extending to Edinburgh earlier this year. With four titles up and running, and another seven around Scotland, Bowdler says there are numerous others in the pipeline.

What is really interesting about all this activity is that it is all happening around the same time. Depending on who you ask, there are different reasons for this.

For one thing, the technology required to print decent titles is cheaper than ever before. Everything can be done on a desktop computer, and people can access professional software at hardly any cost. This might not make a difference to the likes of Johnston Press, but it has undoubtedly attracted the small players.

As Eyre says, Scribus, the publishing program he uses, is freely available online. He adds: "It basically meant that our start-up costs were minimal. Maybe just £500."

Another reason for the explosion in titles, according to Eyre, is the fact that local areas have become increasingly under-served by larger newspapers over the years as costs have been cut.

"There is definitely a centralisation going on in the media," he says. "There are more reporters who are desk bound and don't get out and speak to folk. In that sense the connection between communities and reporters is being stretched."

Brendan Murphy, editor of Comment, which sells about 1500 copies a month, agrees that there is a backlash against traditional news. His title has been around for 25 years, and was part of an earlier wave of publicly funded newsletters that mostly dried up when they had to pay for themselves. He believes the circumstances that inspired his efforts have returned.

"It's part of this process of being completely turned off by the huge issues and struggles of the political parties. There's been a homogenisation of the mainstream media and a general disgust towards what is being pushed out by them," he says.

The business heavyweights have a different take. Jonathan Gibbs proposes that Yahoo and Google have had a hand in creating this market. With software such as Google's GeoTargeting, which enables companies to home in on potential areas of demand, consumers have become much more used to being targeted down to a very narrow area. "It means that the idea of hyperlocal is something that people are much more familiar with," he says.

Bowdler, meanwhile, has a simpler answer. In his view there has been no great change to social structure or the kind of service that the media provides us. What has happened is that advertising revenues from traditional publishing have been drying up in recent years, which has made it necessary to look for ways to make up the shortfall. Offering a home to very small advertisers is one obvious strategy.

Whether these developments fill you with dismay or joy, this all suggests hyperlocal publishing will multiply in future. The Polmont Gazette, G20, Community Times Inverurie and even The Wester Hailes Digger could all be just around the corner. If you end up yearning for another dose of Iraq war coverage, don't say you weren't warned.