News in 10-year print commitment with new plant

As the domestic newspaper printing industry rationalises, New Corp has released details of its new Vic print plant, revealing it has taken an initial 10-year lease on the 11,000sqm site in Truganina on the outskirts of Melbourne.

The site will print News Corp papers, including the Herald Sun and The Australian, as well as Nine mastheads The Age and the Australian Financial Review, and newspapers for Australian Community Media (ACM).

ACM currently prints its own newspapers and the Nine titles at its Ballarat site, which will close when Truganina opens. It will become the fourth of ACM's nine sites to close. Another one of its sites, in Wodonga, is currently under offer from Shepparton based Newsprinters.

Peter Coleman's newspaper industry website Gxpress is reporting that the new News plant will house a pair of double-width newspaper presses: the Goss Unliner T90, sourced from the former Ormiston print site briefly owned by ACM, and a manroland Geoman, now surplus to requirements at the News print centre in Chullora, Sydney.

Coleman says the bindery will be equipped with Ferag drum inserting and mailroom equipment, which will be shipped over from the former Guardian Print Centre in London, which the company closed.

Of the thee major newspaper publishers in Australia outside WA, only News Corp is showing a commitment to printing. Nine has had no print facilities of its own for a year, and ACM, which bought the last remaining Nine plants as part of its deal to buy the regional business, is shedding plants. Seven West Media, which dominates in WA, says tells Print21 it is "100 per cent committed to print", and is not reveiwing its print product.