The Guardian Media Group owns about twenty local papers around Greater Manchester, including the M.E.N and Salford Advertiser.
In 2008/9 the Group made an overall loss of £89.8million, compared with a profit of £306m in 2008. And its regional media profits fell to £500,000 from £14.3million the previous year – 100% more than the Salford Star, but not enough to please the huge media company which also owns The Guardian and Observer nationally, and Channel M locally.
Speculation has been rife recently that GMG wanted to offload its local papers and today a GMG spokesman said…
"Since the publication of the Digital Britain report we have been considering the potential for further consolidation within the regional press sector, and as part of this there have been some exploratory talks regarding our regional media business.
"However these are at a very early stage and it is not clear whether they will progress or what the outcome is likely to be."
Having already moved the Salford Advertiser out of Salford and into Manchester, there's now every possibility that the paper's HQ will be moved even further out – if it survives…