The future of two local weekly newspapers, Victor Harbor’s The Times and Kangaroo Island’s The Islander, is in doubt with Australian Community Media (ACM) announcing closure of many non-daily mastheads.

In its 9 April edition The Times said there would be no printed paper the following week because of Easter deadlines, but the newspaper would be online as usual.

On 14 April The Times tweeted the ACM news.

“The Times’ owners, ACM, will suspend print operations at four press sites and production of various non-daily papers, and staff associated with the print sites and products will be stood down until June 29. It’s unknown if The Times is one of these papers.”

One of the print operations sites to be shut down is at Murray Bridge, where The Times and The Islander are printed.

ACM management has blamed the move on the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy, cutting its revenue.

The decision does not affect the company’s daily papers in the eastern states nor its agricultural publications, including the Stock Journal in South Australia.

Meanwhile the staff of The Times and The Islander have been left in limbo as they wait to hear what it will mean for their jobs.

The Milnes family established The Times in Victor Harbor in 1912 and The Islander was established in Kingscote in 1967.

Both community newspapers were taken over by Rural Press in the 1990s, which was in turn taken over by Fairfax Media in 2007.

This saw staff cuts and centralisation of the newspapers’ management, first to Adelaide and then interstate, with advertising production moved offshore to India.

The Times’ historic headquarters in Coral Street, Victor Harbor, was sold off in 2017, with its much-reduced staff moving to rented offices nearby.

Fairfax Media merged with Channel Nine in 2018 and sold off its regional newspapers, as ACM, in 2019.

The Times also publishes On The Coast, a monthly newspaper that covers McLaren Vale and the northern Fleurieu.