Trinity Mirror turns the page on regional newspaper chief

Britain's biggest regional newspaper publisher is to part company with its boss and launch a review of its commercial strategy amid increasingly tough competition from Google and other online advertising giants.

Sky News‎ has learnt that Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily and Sunday Mirror, is to announce this week that Rachel Addison, the head of its regional newspaper arm, is stepping down.

Her departure will come as Simon Fox, Trinity's chief executive, drafts in the company's former chief operating officer, Mark Hollinshead, to help review options for the growth of the division.

Mr Hollinshead, who left Trinity in 2014 to head the company which owns the commercial rights to the Great North Run, is launching a strategy consultancy, Hollicom, which is expected to work closely with Mr Fox on the project.

Trinity's regional newspaper portfolio includes the Manchester Evening News, Bristol Post and Liverpool Echo, and accounts for a large chunk of the group's revenues.

A statement is likely to be made internally before the weekend, a source said.

Insiders added on Wednesday night that the review to be carried out by Mr Hollinshead's company in conjunction with Trinity executives would focus only on commercial strategy, and insisted that there was no prospect of a sale or other form of exit.

The departure of ‎Ms Addison comes little more than 18 months after Trinity acquired Local World - where she was a senior executive - adding its 83 print titles to the company's existing stable.

That deal cost Trinity £220m, and represented a bold bet on the continued appetite of readers for local titles, both in print and online.

Mr Fox and his team are confident that there remains a major opportunity for local media brands to capture significant shares of their advertising markets.

It has shifted the editorial emphasis of many of its regional newspapers, with less focus on crime stories and more coverage of activities to pursue in the local area, according to the statement containing Trinity's annual results earlier this year.

The company's most recent trading update, released earlier this month, said that the "trading environment has, as anticipated, remained challenging for print advertising" during the four months to April 30.

Trinity did not break down the revenues for its national and regional publishing businesses but said that overall print revenue fell by 12%, with digital growing by 6%.

Mr Fox has run Trinity since 2011, having previously been chief executive of HMV, the music and entertainment retailer.

Despite a difficult advertising market, with revenues showing repeated year-on-year declines, he is regarded by investors as having done a decent‎ job stabilising Trinity's fortunes.

Last year, it scrapped a new female-focused national paper, The New Day, after less than ten weeks after poor sales.

The company now has a market value of just over £300m, and is in talks about participating in a deal that would see the media interests of Richard Desmond folded into a new venture headed by the former Mirror boss David Montgomery.

Other newspaper publishers are faring less well, with Johnston Press - owner of the i, The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post -‎ recently reporting a £300m loss.

Trinity declined to comment, while Mr Hollinshead could not be reached for comment.