JPI Media is set to close two free weekly newspapers in Buckinghamshire as it swings the axe at its regional titles amid falling advertising revenues.
The Bucks Advertiser and the Thame Gazette will stop printing. Both are based in the same office in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
The Advertiser is separate to its JPI Media stablemates the Bucks Herald and the Buckingham and Winslow Advertiser and Review.
Thame Gazette reports on the town of Thame as well as the villages of Haddenham, Chinnor and Long Crendon among others. The British Newspaper Archive has copies of the Thame Gazette stretching back to 1857.
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JPI Media did not offer a statement on the closures but a spokesperson said no jobs would be lost as a result. They added that staff working on the titles are involved in the production of other publications and would now focus on those instead.
JPI Media revealed earlier this month that The Buteman weekly newspaper would publish its final edition on 21 June, more than 160 years after it was founded in 1854, after its circulation dropped below 550.
Press Gazette reported earlier this year that JPI Media, formerly Johnston Press, was looking to cut as many as 70 full-time editorial jobs across the UK.
The publisher told staff in March that it planned to close eight newsrooms and move staff working in a further 19 leasehold offices to shared working spaces.
Plans for a paywall trial at two of its regional dailies were revealed to staff at the end of last month in the face of poor advertising revenues. The Scotsman editor said yesterday his title would put up a paywall online.
JPI Media is owned by former Johnston Press bondholders who snapped up the publisher’s assets in a pre-pack administration deal late last year. The US hedge fund Goldentree Asset Management was the lead bondholder.
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