A number of UK newspaper publishers are in talks to form an alliance that would see them setting aside traditional rivalries and working more closely together, in a move prompted by the growing power of mobile and digital advertising and declining print revenues.

According to the Financial Times, senior Fleet Street executives are exploring the option of creating a single advertising sales operation, unifying print ad sales for every publisher involved, as the industry faces the biggest crisis since the economic crash of 2008.

So far, the Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror and News UK, the parent company of The Times, the Sunday Times and The Sun, have all been involved in talks, and it is unclear if the Daily Mail and its owners General Trust, or Guardian News and Media have also been party to the talks.

As the disconnect between time spent on print media, digital and mobile by consumers and money spent on it by advertisers slowly corrects itself, print ad revenues have fallen sharply. Money spent on print display ads dropped 15 per cent last year, with similar figures reported for the first half of 2016. For the news media industry, which has traditionally failed to invest in digital advertising at a sufficient rate, this creates a significant gap in revenues.

Forming a single advertising sales team could potentially make it easier for agencies to buy ad space in multiple publications, as they would only have to negotiate a single deal, but such an alliance would see publishers sacrificing some of their autonomy when it came to advertising. However, those involved in discussing the deal argue that this loss is worth the boost it would give newspapers in competing with broadcasters and digital media companies.

“We will always fight each other at the newsstands and for the best stories,” said Simon Fox, CEO of Trinity Mirror. “But in the background, there are many ways we can come together to present a more powerful voice to the advertising industry.”

“Potentially this could be a valuable way forward for both sides,” said Steve Goodman, managing director of print trading for GroupM. “If the newspapers are able to come together and offer attractive packages across all titles that would give us an advantage over buying it piecemeal then we would be very interested.”

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