News: Print out. Daily Mail owner to close £60m Rotherham facility
The owner of The Daily Mail has announced plans to close its state-of-the-art printing facility in Rotherham.
DMG Media only acquired the site at Dinnington in 2020.
The facility was created by Johnston Press at a cost of £60m on the site of the former colliery and it includes one of the most modern and fastest presses in the world. It has the capacity to print 192 pages in full colour, 120,000 newspapers an hour in full colour and 75 titles per week.
DMG Media and News UK have now proposed a joint venture which would combine their printing operations.
The proposal would retain three current sites in Broxbourne (Hertfordshire), Knowsley (Merseyside) and Eurocentral (Glasgow), and would potentially mean the closure of DMG Media sites in Thurrock and Dinnington.
A new company would be created to run the combined print operations and proponents say that it would "help improve the efficiency of News UK and DMG Media’s print operations and establish a sustainable business model for the future of national newspaper printing in the UK."
Over the years, the Dinnington site, which is also known as Associated Print Holdings, has printed everything from the Daily Express, Daily Star and The Sun to the Yorkshire Post and Sheffield Star. Other major customers included regional publications and many niche publications.
Last month, it was reported that National World, the company behind The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, and new owner of the Rotherham Advertiser, had signed a deal with Newsquest that would see production end in Dinnington.
As well as The Mail, DMG Media is the holding company that owns the Metro and i newspapers and websites.
News UK, formerly News International, is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers.
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National print newspaper circulation has declined by more than 60% in the past ten years and the challenging economic climate, combined with rising inflationary costs, and accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has put significant additional pressures on the media industry.
Julia Palmer-Poucher, production director at DMG Media Group, said: “The news industry has transformed and continues to change rapidly. DMG Media is at the forefront of this transformation and also remains committed to its print titles, its workforce and its readers.
“The decade-long decline in print circulation has not been matched with changes to print capacity and we must find ways to keep physical newspapers, which have an important future, commercially viable. This proposed combination would provide a long-term solution for the Mail print titles and a sustainable future for the newspaper printing industry.
“We are aware this will be an uncertain time for those potentially impacted and our priority is to provide staff with the support they need throughout this process.”
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) may want to look at the proposed deal in more detail and until the regulatory processes are complete, "the DMG Media printing business and Newsprinters UK remain separate and independent and will continue to operate as such."
Local MP, Alexander Stafford said that he was very concerned about the DMG Media plans for the Dinnington plant, adding that he would contact the company and regulators for more information.
DMG Media website
Images: KeyIS
DMG Media only acquired the site at Dinnington in 2020.
The facility was created by Johnston Press at a cost of £60m on the site of the former colliery and it includes one of the most modern and fastest presses in the world. It has the capacity to print 192 pages in full colour, 120,000 newspapers an hour in full colour and 75 titles per week.
DMG Media and News UK have now proposed a joint venture which would combine their printing operations.
The proposal would retain three current sites in Broxbourne (Hertfordshire), Knowsley (Merseyside) and Eurocentral (Glasgow), and would potentially mean the closure of DMG Media sites in Thurrock and Dinnington.
A new company would be created to run the combined print operations and proponents say that it would "help improve the efficiency of News UK and DMG Media’s print operations and establish a sustainable business model for the future of national newspaper printing in the UK."
Over the years, the Dinnington site, which is also known as Associated Print Holdings, has printed everything from the Daily Express, Daily Star and The Sun to the Yorkshire Post and Sheffield Star. Other major customers included regional publications and many niche publications.
Last month, it was reported that National World, the company behind The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, and new owner of the Rotherham Advertiser, had signed a deal with Newsquest that would see production end in Dinnington.
As well as The Mail, DMG Media is the holding company that owns the Metro and i newspapers and websites.
News UK, formerly News International, is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers.
Advertisement
National print newspaper circulation has declined by more than 60% in the past ten years and the challenging economic climate, combined with rising inflationary costs, and accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has put significant additional pressures on the media industry.
Julia Palmer-Poucher, production director at DMG Media Group, said: “The news industry has transformed and continues to change rapidly. DMG Media is at the forefront of this transformation and also remains committed to its print titles, its workforce and its readers.
“The decade-long decline in print circulation has not been matched with changes to print capacity and we must find ways to keep physical newspapers, which have an important future, commercially viable. This proposed combination would provide a long-term solution for the Mail print titles and a sustainable future for the newspaper printing industry.
“We are aware this will be an uncertain time for those potentially impacted and our priority is to provide staff with the support they need throughout this process.”
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) may want to look at the proposed deal in more detail and until the regulatory processes are complete, "the DMG Media printing business and Newsprinters UK remain separate and independent and will continue to operate as such."
Local MP, Alexander Stafford said that he was very concerned about the DMG Media plans for the Dinnington plant, adding that he would contact the company and regulators for more information.
DMG Media website
Images: KeyIS
3 comments:
The Daily Mail is a fascist lying rag and the Advertiser is becoming irrelevant to Rotherham. Good riddance to the pair of them
The Advertiser has drifted downhill drastically since the previous owner took the money and ran. Appalling paper is now an understatement.
My wife was saying only last week how less attractive the layout and typeface has become recently
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