Over the past decade the profits of 160-odd regional and rural publications that make up the former Fairfax business division known as Australian Community Media have fallen steeply. Seven West's regional TV affiliate, Prime Media Group, and News Corp were also rumoured to have been interested. Catalano, on the other hand, has talked up the potential of the larger daily regional mastheads. It would be naive to be overly hopeful about a new dawn for regional newspapers given the broader context of the Australian news industry. The New Beats study, a comprehensive longitudinal study of redundancies in Australian journalism since 2012, calculates the total revenue of Australian newspapers fell from A$6.2 billion in 2007-08 to A$3 billion in 2016-17. The New Beats researchers say the "Market failure of regional journalism" is that local advertising is simply insufficient to make a local newspaper financially viable. The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance has expressed cautious optimism, tempered by concerns investment in the larger regional mastheads will come at the expense of smaller publications. Read more