REGIONAL NEWSPAPER CULL BEGINS
The closure of regional printed newspapers and the move to digital, predicted by Print21 two weeks ago following the decision by Meta to stop its $200m a year funding, has already begun.
Australian Community Media (ACM), the country’s largest regional publisher, will cease printing weekday editions of several of its newspapers next month, leaving them only with a Saturday printed issue. In addition two weekly newspapers, the Oberon Review and Blayney Chronicle. will no longer appear in print.
ACM cites “unsustainable production costs” along with reduced funding and changing consumer habits for its decision. ACM managing director Tony Kendall says every one of the company's newspapers has been impacted by Meta's decision to stop its funding.
Last week media mogul, and the world's biggest newspaper proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, says printed newspapers have 15 years left in them, and that’s only with “a lot of luck.”
The Western Advocate in Bathurst, which has been printed for almost 200 years, since 1848 will cease its weekday printed editions, but will be available online seven days a week.
Similarly, the Daily Liberal in Dubbo, which has been printed since 1875, and the Central Western Daily in Orange, a relative newcomer having been printed since 1945, will also no longer be printed Monday to Friday, but will be online every day.
ACM managing director Tony Kendall said the titles have had strong support since launching digital subscriptions in 2018, with a 15 per cent annual growth in paid digital subscriptions over the last three years.
“ACM is evolving to be Australia’s leading regional and rural digital media company, and it’s important that we evolve our products to meet the modern reader’s preferences,” Kendall said.
“This new model follows changing consumption habits among readers, plus unsustainable production costs in these markets, and reduced support from government."
ACM, owned by Anthony Catalano and Thorney Investments, bought what was the Fairfax regional newspaper business from Nine Entertainment five years ago, paying $115m for 160 titles and nine print sites. Since then, it has closed or sold almost all its print sites, and closed dozens of papers, sending more to an online-only model.
Fairfax regional newspapers was the business built by legendary publisher John Armarti, who took it over from his father Leo, who founded the business in 1945. Dubbo became the focal point of the Armati empire, and became the biggest printing centre outside of Sydney. Fairfax closed the print plant down in 2016.
The decision by Facebook and Instagram owner Meta not to renew its news contracts with local publishers, and to stop the $200m that goes with it, will hit the metro titles, and is predicted to have profound implications for remaining regional community newspapers. The community newspaper sector has already been in steep decline since Covid, with in excess of 100 local printed newspapers lost forever. Now dozens more printed local papers could join them.
Already the 126-year-old Broken Hill newspaper Barrier Daily Truth has closed its doors, with the threat of no Meta money meaning it could not carry a $176,000 debt.
News publishers can still publish news on their own Facebook pages, but Facebook will take down its News tab, and will not pay for news. Facebook says only three per cent of its users access news, a figure Lucie Peart, president of Country Press NSW, said, “is impossible to believe”.