Financial imperatives and internal changes may have led Australia's two newsmedia giants to a change of heart on outsourcing print production to each other.

While sharing of newspaper production facilities has been on the agenda on several occasions before, talks have previously come to nothing.

Now, following "positive discussions" with News Corp Australia, Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood says the two have jointly appointed advisers to "pursue deeper strategic opportunities".

He says the search for "industry-wide efficiencies" in printing and distribution has already produced successful collaborations around shared trucking and printing titles for News in Queensland.

Both companies have seen recent changes in top print and logistics management, with Neil Monaghan - formerly head of APN's Australian Regional Media business - moved last year to a national role as News' managing director for publishing operations - responsibility which includes procurement, logistics and production across the country - following the departure of Geoff Booth.

Meanwhile, a replacement for Bob Lockley, who retired as Fairfax group director for print and distribution last November, has not been named.

The consolidation of former APN Print sites into News Corp following its acquisition of the APN Australian Regional Media business has already seen changes, with printing of some former APN titles moved to News' Murarrie (Brisbane) plant and the Manugraph newspaper press at the former APN Warwick print site shut down.

News also gained a flexible hybrid heatset-coldset plant at Yandina, north of Brisbane, and another Manugraph-equipped plant in Rockhampton in the deal, and the latter is already printing copies of News' tabloid daily the Courier-Mail. Most of these changes simplify distribution logistics.

Fairfax has a print site in Ormiston, south of Brisbane, equipped with a double-width Goss Uniliner similar to the one it installed at Christchurch, New Zealand. Fairfax has already saved the cost of a planned greenfield print site in Auckland by outsourcing printing of its North Island titles to NZME.

But while Chris Janz' Australian metro publishing unit - responsible for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review - was praised in Hywood's half-yearly report this week for an "impressive" 11 per cent decline in costs largely from savings in staff, technology and print production, the quest for savings continues.

The savings "more than offset" a nine per cent decline in revenue, but Hywood says an ongoing commitment to print is "underpinned by a level of advertiser and consumer support".

All three publishing businesses were profitable and generating valuable cash flows", with Australian Community Media also delivering a seven per cent cost improvement although total publishing advertising revenue declined by 15 per cent.

Hywood also announced that an enhanced technology platform for publishing has replaced "complex legacy systems with new fit-for -purpose, agile, flexible and much lower cost solutions".

• Prospects of cooperation have not, however, prevented Fairfax from announcing that it is withdrawing deliveries of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and importantly the Australian Financial Review to newsagencies in North Queensland from next month... and News' rival The Australian from crowing about it. "You can buy The Australian and The Weekend Australian in Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns for the same price, and with the most up to date news, as you can in Sydney and Melbourne," says editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker in the paper.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: The pressline in Ormiston, Brisbane, Fairfax commissioned in 2008