Today I presented to the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) conference at the University of Melbourne. I was asked to give a quick five-minute primer on the state of the Australian news market ahead of a panel discussion about pressure points for the media industry.

I took the opportunity to discuss one of the more interesting phenomena that we’ve observed at PIJI over the past five years: a significant change among producers of regional news.

Australian Community Media’s presence in regional markets at 1 January 2020 (white), and markets where it has significantly or entirely ended its presence, at 30 September 2024.

For a long time a network of papers now published under the Australian Community Media (ACM) brand, previously as the Rural Press network when owned by Fairfax, was the dominant print news producer in much of the country. The operated as many as 160 newspapers in every state and territory in Australia, many more than a century old, and including storied titles like the Newcastle Herald, Ballarat Courier and Launceston Examiner.

ACM’s position in the market has changed dramatically since 2020, however. The gif above shows the regional news markets where ACM operated a newspaper at the beginning of that year. These are indicated in white. The map transitions to those markets where, on PIJI’s assessment, ACM has partially or entirely reduced its presence in the five years to the end of 2024. These are in yellow.

It’s a stark difference: ACM is down more than 100 papers in that period, as things have been merged together, sold off, or shut down entirely. They no longer have a presence in Western Australia or South Australia, almost no presence in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and in New South Wales have heavily consolidated their production around a few key regional dailies. These too have been affected: in 2024 the Western Advocate, Central Western Daily and Daily Liberal were cut from five days per week in print down to one.

There’s a similar story to be told about News Corp, which closed two dozen regional newspapers in Queensland and ended the printed editions of many more local outlets in regional Queensland and New South Wales, and in the state capitals. Its plan to launch 50 digital regional titles has fizzled – far fewer than 50 were launched, of which a few are quality news sites, but most are ghosts with no assigned staff and no local content.

This decline, though shocking, was not ultimately the purpose of my presentation. What’s more interesting is what has happened alongside ACM’s decline. In some places there have been independent local efforts spring up to fill the gap, sometimes by the same journalists who were laid off, as was the case as with Murray Bridge News and Indy NR.

Today News Group (blue), Times News Group (purple) and Provincial Press Group (green) presence in regional markets at 30 September 2024.

We’ve also seen the emergence of three regional press networks in many of the markets that major media companies have abandoned.

The largest of these is the Today News Group, which has expanded considerably since its founding in 2020. Starting in central Queensland, it has entered former News Corp markets, taken over distressed titles in places like Longreach and Mackay, and bought ACM out of South Australia entirely. It has also purchased the Papers and Publications stable of four newspapers in South Australia, and launched new titles in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. Considered alongside its sister company Star News Group, suburban Melbourne’s major news producer, the network has quietly become one of the largest newspaper publishers in Australia, and the largest in the regions.

(Edit 12/01/25: Shortly after giving this presentation, Today News Group purchased two more titles in south west Victoria – the Hamilton Spectator and Portland Observer – saving both from closure.)

Though not as large as the joint Star/Today group, at least two other publisher networks are worth mentioning.

  • Times News Group has expanded from its base on the Bellarine Peninsula south of Melbourne into regional cities Ballarat and Bendigo and their surrounds. In 2024 it launched its first titles outside of Victoria, with a paper in Mount Gambier (South Australia) and four on the New South Wales north coast, in Tweed Heads, Byron Bay, Lismore and Ballina.
  • North East Media publishes the Wangaratta Chronicle, Mansfield Courier and more in Victoria’s Hume region. As Provincial Press Group it has expanded across the Murray into New South Wales, where it acquired seven papers from ACM and the Wilkie Watson stable of independent papers in Tumut, Temora and Narrandera.

There’s a lot of doom-and-gloom about the state of regional news. I’m sure that my work at PIJI has contributed to it. Though the decline is very noticeable, it’s always worth highlighting where things are more complicated than they first appear, and I think that this is one of those cases. Yes, things are hard for regional producers, and we’re a bit early on to know whether all these efforts will succeed, but there are still significant investments in regional being made. That’s worth celebrating – or at least, mentioning to a few dozen academics in a University of Melbourne lecture theatre one November morning.