Allied Newspapers Limited will shortly be transferring its newspaper printing requirements from its sister company, Progress Press Co. Limited, to a third-party digital newspaper print supplier.

The move is expected to take place within the early stages of the coming year, almost 85 years since the company started printing Malta’s widest-circulating newspapers – the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times of Malta.

“Nothing will change insofar as the publication of our newspapers goes. Both the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times of Malta will continue to be published daily without fail. The only difference is that we will no longer be printing the newspapers ourselves,” said Allied Newspapers’ managing director, Michel Rizzo.

Progress Press will continue to operate as a printing press, offering a variety of non-newspaper printing services.

“Progress Press was originally set up in 1922 to print Lord Strickland’s political newspapers, so deciding to close down the newspaper printing line after so many decades was not an easy decision. It is a very bold move by the company’s board of directors, and one that makes perfect commercial sense,” Mr Rizzo said.

Nowadays, very few media organisations the world over actually print their own newspapers.

“With all the digital disruption that exists in the media world today, traditional media organisations such as ours need to keep on finding new ways in which to operate effectively. As Malta’s leading media house, we need to be 100 per cent focussed on operating a financially sound media model that is multi-tiered from a product perspective, and relevant to today’s society. And it needs to continue nurturing our core values of independence, fairness, trust and credibility, among others.”

Fourth pillar

“I firmly believe that with the current political crisis in the country, everybody is once again understanding and appreciating what an important institution the Times of Malta is. Considered by many as the fourth pillar of Malta’s democracy, we are again playing a major role in writing our country’s history,” Mr Rizzo added.

“And here I feel it is only opportune to express my sincere thanks and admiration to our editors, journalists and all other members of our newsroom for their passion, dedication and great work during this particularly difficult and volatile juncture in Malta’s existence. I have no qualms in saying that what our organisation has achieved in the past weeks really does set us apart… from our top investigative stories right up to our live commentaries and fair reporting. We are continually doing our utmost to strike a balance between stories that are in the public interest and those that promote journalism for the common good,” continued Mr Rizzo.

We have registered a major increase in the 25-to-34-year-old readership bracket online over the past couple of years

“We are catering more than ever to the tens of thousands of foreigners now living in Malta. We are also creating more suitable content for the younger generation and have registered a major increase in the 25-to-34-year-old readership bracket online over the past couple of years. All this requires very high standards of journalism, and journalism costs money,” Mr Rizzo said.

Future plans

Notwithstanding the financial pressures, the Allied Group remains committed to investing further in both its print and digital media business.

“We operate the largest newsroom in Malta, with an editorial revamp carried out in 2019. The circulation of our daily and Sunday newspapers remains more than twice that of all other local newspapers put together. Our online figures are astounding. Each day, our online platform attracts around 90,000 unique visitors on average and just under half-a-million page views. With all that has been happening in the country lately, we are currently hitting averages of more than one million page views per day on average. These are remarkable figures by local standards. This means the Times of Malta has more readers than ever before in its 85-year-history,” continued Mr Rizzo.

According to internet website monitoring service Alexa, Times of Malta is bigger than Google, Facebook or YouTube where it comes to local traffic.

“The company intends to maximise the potential of its multi-purpose premises in Mriehel. This property has a lot to offer in terms of real estate potential and plans are in hand to rent out areas currently not occupied by either Allied Newspapers or Progress Press. The majority of what was the shop-floor manufacturing space will be vacated and put to better use. This means close to 8,000 square metres of premium space that can be rented out for a myriad of different uses including catering, retail, offices, warehousing and the like. The company will continue to explore the possibility of developing the building further and adding more floors to ultimately transform the space into a prestigious business hub,” Mr Rizzo said.

Progress Press

The immediate future of Progress Press remains in printing.

For many years now, the press has specialised in the printing of books, magazines, catalogues, annual reports, stationery, invitations, menus and other similar products, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

“There doesn’t exist one print job that we are not able to handle at Progress Press, especially those which involve small- to medium-sized print runs,” Mr Rizzo said.

To further enhance its print offering, the company recently launched Smart Print, a cloud-based web-to-print service via which customers can directly purchase a variety of printing services.

“Progress Press is today recognised as one of the leading printers in Malta and it is our firm intention to keep building on this platform and increasing market share in this segment,” concluded Mr Rizzo.