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West Country dailies to share feature content

Two regional morning titles in the West of England are set to share their feature content as part of a wide-ranging shake-up of their operations.

Earlier this year the Western Daily Press and Western Morning News were brought under a single editor-in-chief in Plymouth.

Now the Northcliffe-owned dailies are set to share more features, news and opinion-related content in a bid to create a ‘common spine’ for the two titles.

In addition all editorial management of the Daily Press is set to move to Plymouth, with features, photographic and sport handled from there in addition to the news operation.

Announcing the proposed changes to staff today, editor-in-chief Alan Qualtrough said there was a likelihood of redundancies.

The changes are being proposed as part of a much wider restructuring of Northcliffe’s production operations also announced to staff today, which is expected to lead to around 50 job losses.

Alan told HTFP the changes in the features operation were largely about removing duplication.

“We have seen some synergies in the two titles and we now think we can move that process on,” he said.