The chief of Johnston Press has pledged to “put digital at the heart” of the business and to have a web audience equal to the group’s newspaper circulation.
Ashley Highfield made the announcement as Johnston Press, the UK’s second-largest regional newspaper group, swung to a loss last year.
Johnston, which owns the News Letter, The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post and hundreds of other titles, posted a £143.8 million loss in 2011, compared to a £16.5 million profit the previous year, as the group wrote down the book value of its newspapers by more than £160 million.
Mr Highfield outlined plans to relaunch all titles within the group as integrated digital and print products.
He said: “In all communities that we serve we aim to have a web audience at least as big as our newspaper circulation and to use print to actively cross-promote the web and vice versa, thus remaining relevant in a digital age, while not alienating our heartland audience.”
Mr Highfield also announced a new lending deal with the group’s banks to take it through to September 2015.
Earlier this month Johnston Press said it was scaling back some daily newspapers to weekly publications as new web, mobile and iPad offerings are developed.
In a sign of developments to come, the group launched free football smartphone apps for 10 titles, which feature the latest stats, live match updates and team line-ups for local clubs.
Mr Highfield, who worked as director of new media and technology at the BBC for eight years, is in the midst of making significant changes.
The initial phase of the re-launch initiative will focus on five centres currently producing daily print titles – Halifax, Kettering, Northampton, Peterborough and Scarborough.
The revamped newsrooms will publish seven days per week online, with a print edition of a newly-formatted newspaper once a week.
Each of the group’s 170 paid for titles will be redesigned as part of the relaunch initiative, but no other daily titles will be converted to a weekly format during the rollout.