Western Suburbs-focused The Post will soon print its own editions, in a bid to maintain independence and break the monopoly of newspaper presses in the state.
Western Suburbs-focused The Post will soon print its own editions, in a bid to maintain independence and break the monopoly of newspaper presses in the state.
The Post today announced engineers were in the final stages of installing a high-speed newspaper press, after the Shenton Park-based media outlet secured one from the US.
Once installed, it will be the only rotary newspaper press in the state outside of the WA Newspapers-run facility in Herdsman.
Post Newspapers editor Bret Christian said planning for the new project started when the printing press in Mandurah closed two years ago.
In early 2023, IVE Group announced to its clients that the Mandurah press on Rafferty Close will shut its doors.
Mr Christian said the new press was expected to start printing 50,000 copies of the POST each week in the new financial year.
The project is being financed from the POST’s resources and with some help from supportive local business people, he said.
The upcoming press will have capacity to print other independent newspapers.
IVE Group's closure of its Mandurah press in March 2023 led to Australian Community Media cutting its WA mastheads which included Augusta-Margaret River Mail, Bunbury Mail, Busselton-Dunsborough Mail and Mandurah Mail.
The Mandurah facility was one of two commercial printing presses in WA, with the other owned by Seven West Media.
The lack of competition in the state’s printing press market has posed some concerns, including talks over exclusivity of stories.
Nine's Australian Financial Review claimed it had the exclusive on the separation of billionaire power couple Andrew and Nicola Forrest in mid-2023.
Business News reported that the electronic files for the printing of the newspaper were sent to SWM's printing press, which is located alongside The West Australian in Herdsman, about 5.30pm on July 10.
It is understood The West Australian made calls to Tattarang's media team that afternoon.
Sources at Nine say it had the story about the Forrest split exclusively but it was taken by The West Australian from the AFR's newspaper before it had been publicly released.
SWM printed the AFR for the WA market at its Herdsman headquarters, with no other commercial newspaper printing option existing in WA.
In May 2024, Nine announced it would pull its print editions of the AFR from Perth after SWM demanded a new contract that doubled the cost of printing.
The media outlet called it a "targeted attack on the Financial Review" by Seven-owned Colourpress, the only printer of major newspapers in WA.
Post Newspapers business manager Louis Bailey said securing the press had been nine months in the making.
"We took it upon ourselves to try and change it up a bit and secure supply for ourselves and other independents who may need to rely on us in the future, and also to bring back some competition to the market," he said.
"We signed the contract in November last year, then there's quite a bit of work going into it to get to this point where we expect to be printing live copy from the new financial year."
