Coronavirus: News Corp suspends print editions of community papers in NSW, Victoria, Qld, SA

News Corp Australia’s boss slammed government inaction as community newspaper print editions were halted.

News Corp Australasia Executive Chairman Michael Miller. Picture: Brett

News Corp Australia boss Michael Miller has slammed inaction of “government after government” who have hampered a viable local media and allowed it to be eaten alive by tech giants as the company suspended the print editions of its 60 community newspapers.

As the Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc with the advertising market and distribution of newspapers in Australia, the News Corp Australasia Executive Chairman announced today the suspension of printed versions of the community titles in metro areas in the four biggest states but would be seeking to preserve jobs.

“We have not taken this decision lightly. As I communicated to you last week, the Coronavirus crisis has created unprecedented economic pressures and we are doing everything we can to preserve as many jobs as possible,” Mr Miller wrote in a note to staff.

Mr Miller said he was surprised at the reaction to the decision by some politicians given he had made clear the parlous state of Australian media.

“When you talk it through with them, the amount categories, there’s no cover price, and the fact that these are distributed to every household in the region. In many ways the publishing has become a bit of a community service not a viable business.

“We’ve looked at it as a whole, but this time we’ve had to look at the parts unfortunately.”

The COVID-19 emergency has hit media companies hard with all of Australia’s major media companies issuing market guidance or announcing cost cuts due to a dire advertising market.

On Tuesday Nine Entertainment announced that it would be cutting sections and liftouts in its mastheads The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review. including its lucrative Domain property liftout.

Nine also announced it would be cutting bonuses and forcing staff to take leave as well losing casual staff. It did not rule out further job cuts after telling the market it would aim to save $266 million dollars this year following a profit downgrade.

On Wednesday Seven West Media CEO James Warburton told staff they would need to take a 10 to 20 per cent pay cut and move to a 4 day with forced annual leave. Seven West Media issued a profit downgrade a week earlier and its share price closed at 7 cents on Wednesday.

While Mr Miller said that while clearly no government could be held accountable for the coronavirus, for years Australian media companies had been making the case for the dire need of policy reform in the interests of business survival and of democracy, but “government after government have chosen to kick the can down the road.”

“They heard from News Corp, Seven West Media, the Nine group, the Ten group. They’ve heard from all the radio companies, from everybody loud and clear now for a good decade about the stresses and pressures and the changes that are happening around the world for media.

“If Australia wants to have a viable local media, which is important to our democracy. Important to our communities, then they need to be now be progressive in the laws and regulations that enable that,” Mr Miller said.

Top of that list should be the government enforcing the ACCC’s recommendations that a code of conduct on revenue sharing between media companies and tech giants like Google and Facebook.

“The unfairness of the digital playing field, along with Australia’s draconian tangle of legislation and regulation means local companies can’t compete with international platforms.”

Pointing to the record demand for news during the COVID-19 emergency, Mr Miller said it was obvious that Facebook and Google were benefiting from the journalistic demand.

“As we’re seeing a big demand for our news but the big winners out of that are

the tech companies that who republishing our news with great benefits.”

Mr Miller said the government should step in to force the tech companies to pay for content if they can’t come to a commercial agreement.

“I have no confidence that’s going to show the progress that we have expected. There’s a review period there and the government can say “this isn’t Google or Facebook’s code of conduct. This is going to be an agreement on how tech companies remunerate.” It’s a commercial agreement between tech companies and media companies. It’s a commercial negotiation, and if we can’t agree the government should bring forward a more mandated position.”

Mr Miller said other reforms on the list needed to be privacy and secrecy laws “restricting journalists doing their job” as well as anti-siphoning laws and compulsory childrens’ content for commercial networks.

While printed titles in regional Queensland and Northern NSW will remain, the decision will stop the print run of 60 News Corp’s community metro titles.

Significant community titles in NSW include, The Manly Daily, The Wentworth Courier, Penrith Press, Inner-West Courier. In Queensland titles include the Brisbane News, North-West News, The Southern Star, Albert and Logan News, and the Caboolture Herald.

In Victoria long-standing mastheads include the Manningham Leader, Preston Leader, Frankston Leader, Diamond Valley and Monash Leader.

Mr Miller told The Australian it was a “sad day” for the newspapers, some of which had been around for over 100 years.

“The Leader titles have been published since 1864,” Mr Miller said.