The announcement this week that the Liverpool Daily Post is to cease publication in its current form might have made headlines locally - but it hardly came as a shock.
The well-documented woes of the regional press were compounded on Merseyside by the decision in the late 2000s to turn the Post's more populist sister paper, the Liverpool Echo, into an overnight publication, thereby pitting it directly against its stable mate. In an attempt to mitigate this obvious clash, the publishers morphed the always more analytical Post into a specialist arts, politics and sports paper. The Echo was also given a "main extra" edition (usually off the press by early afternoon), in order that at least some of that day's news might appear in what is still regarded by many as an evening paper.
Neither sop was ever going to save the Post. The nonsense model of publishing two, essentially competing local papers at a time of freefall in local readerships would always see off the more vulnerable of the two titles eventually. By the end, the Post had 8000 readers, just a tenth of those enjoyed by the Echo (which itself is down from over 110,000 only five years ago). The luxury of having two local print papers might well come from an age which has now passed, but what of the future?
Local factors might have accelerated the demise of the Post, but there can be no hiding from the wider issue that is the perilous state of the provinicial press. The Post will now become a weekly publication (heavy on the analysis), with a website that continues to update daily. The Echo might attempt to compensate by gravitating back towards its own more middle-market heritage, but with even the likes of Roy Greenslade forecasting a swift end to all print papers in the regions, perhaps it's time the traditionalists (declaration of interest: I am one) sat up and took notice.
The thirst for the kind of in-depth analysis now promised by the weekly version of the Post will be an interesting indication of just how much a new generation craves this type of local news. The Birmingham Post followed an almost identical path in 2009 - and, two years on, the new model remains intact. However, it is notable that the provincial titles which have been first to fall have been at the heavyweight end of the scale. Similarly, the demise of the North West Enquirer, a laudable, but ill-fated venture back in 2006 to serve up a diet of considered analysis and in-depth politics to a region-wide audience, places a question mark over the kind of local news which is valued by potential readers. To complicate matters further, the value placed on a particular type of journalism does not necessarily equate to its worth - and local democracy hinges on the strength of local reporting as much as it ever did.
Are those who argue that it is only the method of consumption which is changing in the digital world actually failing to consider a more pertinent question - is there a new generation which cares in sufficient numbers about what might be called big-picture local news?
I hope and think that there just might be. If so, then, as I have argued elsewhere, it requires the kind of journalism which can best be provided by established media organisations - and that means it needs to pay its own way.
Unfortunately, answers on that conundrum are as thin on the ground as increasing circulations.
