Fairfax printed weekday editions to continue

Fairfax has surprised industry analysts who predicted an end to its Monday-Friday metro print runs in the near future, saying it expects to sustain a commercially successful print proposition.

Greg Hywood, CEO, Fairfax, says, “While we have considered many options, the model we have developed involves continuing to print our publications daily for some years yet.”

Fairfax has invited intense industry speculation in recent months over its weekday metro papers, with Hywood and the Board regularly casting doubt over their continued appearance under his digital first strategy.

The weekday papers are struggling for advertising, and have already been downsized from broadsheet to tabloid size, have seen a massive reduction in journalists, and have had their printing moved from Tullamarine and Chullora to regional print centres in Ballarat and Richmond, which has meant the papers are unable to report the previous evenings sports action.

The announcement was made alongside the introduction of Chris Janz, a digital publication veteran, appointed as managing director of Australian Metro Publishing. According to Fairfax, Janz, who was founding CEO of HuffPost Australia will now head the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review.

Janz has a tough task ahead of him, as Fairfax last year wrote down the value of its mastheads by $989m, pushing the full year result for 2016 to a net loss after tax of $893m. Revenue was down 2 per cent to $1.83bn. Excluding write downs of more than $1bn, underlying profit was $132m, down 7.6 per cent.

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