“Half of local and regional newspapers to close in five years”

Half of the UK’s local and regional newspapers could close within the next five years, according to Claire Enders, chief executive of Enders Analysis.

Speaking to a commons committee yesterday, Enders said that newspapers would close as revenues will collapse by 52%, or £1.3 billion, between 2007 and 2013.

“We are expecting that up to half of all the 1,300 titles will close in the next five years,” she told the culture, media and sport select committee, which has launched an investigation into the future of local radio and newspapers.

“Many titles are loss-making and are being sustained by the good graces of their owners. That may not last,” she added.

Trinity Mirror chief executive, Sly Bailey, said that her company closed 27 newspapers in 2008 and eight so far in 2009. “Undoubtedly there will be more,” she added.

Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall told the committee that even if there is an advertising recovery it will “not really solve the problems of the regional press.

“The structural change is too profound and the economic recession has just hammered it.”