THE troubled Johnston Press media group may close as many as seven of its weekly newspaper titles in Northern Ireland and potentially make a number of staff redundant, a memo to staff has revealed.
But the Edinburgh-headquartered publisher has effectively also ring-fenced its one daily paper in the north, the Belfast News Letter, from a possible sale.
In a review of its portfolio Johnston - which publishes more than 220 regional titles including 12 paid dailies, 185 paid weeklies and 28 freesheets - has identified papers falling outside its selected markets, not matching its audience focus or with low digital potential.
It has lumped them into four specific groupings, ranging from eight "uber" titles that fit criteria including focusing on wealthier readers with “more disposable income”, through to 56 sub-core" loss-making newspapers which it believes add little or no value to the group.
And among those in that bottom tier are the Carrick Gazette, Ballymena Times, Ballymoney Times, Banbridge Leader, Belfast Vibe, Londonderry Sentinel and Tyrone Times, who between them employ more than 30 editorial, advertising and administrative staff.
Johnston - which hit its profit targets for 2015 despite ad revenues falling by 12 per cent and overall circulation by 7 per cent - said: "The sub-score group makes up a third of our news brands and delivers very low levels of contribution, and some brands in this group do not break even.
"We intend to review these first and will look to establish new innovative models to enable us to improve the levels of return from this group.
"It is critical that our resources are used to the maximum effect and we will be working speedily to establish an effective publishing model for these brands."
But a spokesman for the publisher insisted that being categorised as sub-core does not automatically mean that title is up for sale.
As well as the News Letter, the other "gems" in the portfolio are the Yorkshire Post, The Scotsman, Yorkshire Evening Post, Edinburgh Evening News, Portsmouth News, Lancashire Evening Post and the Sheffield Star.
There are no Northern Ireland titles in Johnston's so-called "primary" group of 23 weekly titles, but in the "core" grouping of 74 newspapers are the Larne Times, Portadown Times, Derry Journal, Lurgan Mail, Mid-Ulster Mail and Ulster Star.
Johnston staff were told: "Each of the four groupings (uber, primary, core and sub-core) makes a different, but equally important, contribution to the company and we believe that different strategies are needed for each group in order to set that group of brands up to be successful and improve their contribution.
"To be crystal clear: if we do decide to undertake a small number of asset sales, the four groupings have no bearing on those decisions."
It is estimated that more than 300 local newspapers have been closed in the last 10 years, with around 1,100 still published across the UK.
