News Corp restructures regional and community titles

News Corp Australia has announced major changes to its portfolio of regional and community mastheads.

News Corp executive chairman Australasia Michael Miller. Picture: Mark Stewart

News Corp is set to permanently cease printing the bulk of its portfolio of over one hundred community and regional titles as part of a large scale restructure of the company’s mastheads.

News Corp executive chairman Australasia Michael Miller said that some jobs would be lost as a result of the changes.

Mr Miller said in a note to staff on Thursday that most of the regional and community newspapers that had stopped printing due to COVID-19 would continue to be published in digital-only format, with others also moving to digital-only editions.

In total 76 mastheads will move to digital only editions with another 36 titles closing all together.

“COVID-19 has impacted the sustainability of community and regional publishing. Despite the audiences of News Corp’s digital mastheads growing more than 60 per cent as Australians turned to trusted media sources during the peak of the recent COVID-19 lockdowns, print advertising spending which contributes the majority of our revenues, has accelerated its decline,” Mr Miller said.

“Consequently, to meet these changing trends, we are reshaping News Corp Australia to focus on where consumers and businesses are moving and to strengthen our position as Australia’s leading digital news media company. This will involve employing more digital only journalists and making investments in digital advertising and marketing solutions for our partners.

“More than 640,000 Australians, our latest figures show, are currently subscribing to News Corp’s digital news content and subscriptions are growing at an annual rate of 24 per cent.”

The portfolio changes mean that from Monday June 29, the bulk of News Corp’s regional and community titles would move to purely digital publishing.

News Corp will now publish a total of 92 digital-only mastheads, with 16 purely digital titles launched in the last 18 months.

In addition, Mr Miller said major News Corp mastheads The Courier-Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Advertiser would become more state focused, with more regional content and partnerships with local titles.

Hobart’s The Mercury as well as NT News, The Cairns Post, Townsville Bulletin, Gold Coast Bulletin, Toowoomba Chronicle and Geelong Advertiser would continue to publish in both print and digital formats.

Three Sydney community titles – Wentworth Courier, Mosman Daily and North Shore Times – which are distributed in the city’s most affluent suburbs, would resume print editions, Mr Miller said.

Mr Miller said the changes would result in job losses but did not put a figure on how many positions would be affected by the changes. He thanked those leaving the company for their professionalism, dedication and contribution.

“They have provided News with invaluable years of service. Their passionate commitment to the communities in which they live and work and their role in ensuring these have been informed and served by trusted local media has been substantial,” he said.

“News Corp and its employees also will retain at their creative core their passion for championing, and advocating for an ever improving Australia. As our country emerges in coming weeks from the lockdown enforced on us by the threat of COVID-19 into a ‘new normal’, we will ensure these values that separate News Corp from other media companies are even stronger than ever.”

The changes come after News Corp CEO Robert Thomson announced at the company’s third quarter results the finalisation of a strategic review into the community and regional mastheads. News Corp had also been in talks with Australian Community Media about selling its portfolio of community and regional titles, but called off talks after a deal could not be reached, preferring to restructure the titles as digital-only mastheads.

News Corp also recently announced it would realign itself a digital publisher of high-quality journalism across specialist teams led by Peter Blunden as national executive editor.

Mr Miller said the new specialist editorial teams would mean that where previously News Corp had been “a network of news­papers, now we will be Australia’s leading journalism network”. Mr Blunden also chairs of News Corp’s editorial board.

Regional coverage continues

The company had a clear and sustainable strategy for continuing regional coverage, Mr Miller said.

“News Corp remains committed to Australia’s regions and communities and the initiatives we are implementing today represent a detailed, considered strategy to ensure we will better serve our journalism to Australians who live outside its major cities.

There would still be nearly 400 News Corp journalist covering regional and rural Australia, he said.

“More than 375 journalists will be specifically covering regional and community news and information. They will continue to serve, and live in, their local communities with the majority in regional Queensland where we have most of our titles,” Mr Miller said.

As part of the changes announced on Thursday, the majority of titles in the NewsLocal group in NSW and the ACT, the Leader group in Melbourne, Quest in Brisbane and Messenger in Adelaide will become digital only.

In Queensland, titles affected by the changes include: Mackay Daily Mercury, Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, Gladstone Observer, Bundaberg News Mail, Fraser Coast Chronicle, Gympie Times, Sunshine Coast Daily, Queensland Times, Warwick Daily News, Central and North Burnett Times, Central Queensland News, Chinchilla News, Dalby Herald. Gatton Star, Noosa News, South Burnett Times, Stanthorpe Border Post, Western Star, Western Times, Whitsunday Times, Whitsunday Coast Guardian and Bowen Independent.

Melbourne Leader titles include; Stonnington, Mornington Peninsula, Knox, Whitehorse, Monash, Northern, Whittlesea, Maroondah, Moorabbin, Mordialloc Chelsea, Moreland, Lilydale and Yarra Valley, Frankston, Bayside, Caulfield Port Phillip, Cranbourne, Greater Dandenong, Moonee Valley, Maribyrnong, Wyndham;

NewsLocal in NSW and ACT titles include: Fairfield Advance, Penrith Press, Macarthur Chronicle, Blacktown Advocate, Canterbury Bankstown Express, Central Coast Express, Hills Shire Times, Hornsby Advocate, Liverpool Leader, Manly Daily, Northern District Times, Parramatta Advertiser, Inner West Courier, Southern Courier, Illawarra Star, Wagga Wagga News, St George Shire Standard, Canberra Star, Newcastle News, Blue Mountains News, Central Sydney, South Coast News;

Quest in Queensland include: Albert and Logan News, Caboolture Herald, Westside News, Pine Rivers Press, Redcliffe and Bayside Herald, South-West News, Wynnum Herald, North Lakes Times, Redlands Community News, Springfield News;

Messenger in SA include: Messenger South Plus; Messenger East Plus, Messenger North, Messenger West, Messenger City, Adelaide Hills and Upper Spencer Gulf.