Australian Community Media has announced it will close three of its printing press facilities and enter into a printing agreement with News Ltd.
Printing sites at Canberra and Murray Bridge in South Australia will close from August 28, while the Ballarat facility will be shut from October 2, although the company has said it has no intention to stop printing newspapers.
The closures will not affect the publication of ACM's newspapers, including The Canberra Times, The Newcastle Herald and The Border Mail.
Read more: Antony Catalano writes: why we're stopping the presses
ACM said in a statement it was still considering whether to close a fourth printing facility, at Albury/Wodonga, and had not made a final decision. It is not known how many jobs are likely to be affected by the closure decision across the network but 61 jobs will be lost from the Canberra site.
ACM publications in Victoria will be printed by News Corp facilities, while ACM will continue to print newspapers in Tasmania and Western Australia.
An ACM spokesman said the loss of jobs had made it a difficult decision that had not been taken lightly.
"We are not stepping away from publishing printed copies of our newspapers - to the contrary, the printed newspaper will still play a significant role in the future of ACM," the spokesman said.
"We have made the decision that ACM does not need to own print facilities to achieve this objective.
"The high-valued mastheads of ACM, News Corp and Nine Entertainment Group will all benefit from the rationalisation of printing centres that will result in cost savings across printing and distribution."
ACM announced in April it was suspending printing at its Canberra, Murray Bridge, Wodonga and Tamworth facilities.
The company at the time also announced it would suspend publishing a number of non-daily newspapers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but most titles have since returned.
"We are confident that these changes will make our newspapers stronger and more sustainable into the future," the spokesman said.
"Even before we saw the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, many of our printing presses had more capacity than demand. As a result, we have determined that the overheads of running expensive manufacturing operations are an unsustainable drain on our business and that there are alternatives available to us which provide better commercial outcomes while allowing us to focus on our core publishing business."
Due to the closures, a print deal signed by ACM and Nine to print newspapers such as The Age and the Australian Financial Review has been terminated.
The deal was signed last July after ACM boss Antony Catalano purchased Nine's regional newspapers, and was estimated to have two years left to run.
