News to stop regional Qld print distribution

Newspaper publisher News Corp will stop distribution of its bigger titles to much of regional Queensland by September, a year after it canned production of many of its local papers.

News Corp cited the high cost of distribution to regional Queensland as the reason newsagents will stop being supplied with print titles in towns, including Mount Isa and Longreach.

Local residents will longer be able to read the printed versions of eight News mastheads, including the Courier Mail, The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Townsville Bulletin, Cairns Post, Chronicle (Toowoomba), Weekly Times and The Sportsman.

Reports say that the decision impacts newsagents west of Charters Towers and Emerald.

The nation’s printed newspaper business is in a state of flux, following the mass closures of regional and community papers during Covid, which hastened the move to online news.

Some new newspapers – usually started by the editor and sales manager of a closed title – have got off the ground, but they are all beset by production issues, as the number of newspaper print plants rapidly shrinks. Some Queensland regional papers are now being printed in Sydney, at the ACM plant in North Richmond, and trucked all the way up.