American Consolidated Media (ACM) on Wednesday announced plans to shutter its Hibbing presses and shift printing for its Iron Range newspapers to the Duluth News Tribune’s new facility in Duluth's Airpark beginning April 1.

Employees of ACM’s plant will be given the opportunity to seek jobs with Forum Communications, which owns the News Tribune, according to sources familiar with the decision. A total of 54 employees are affected by the shutdown, according to a company-generated news story.

It’s the latest cost-cutting move by ACM, which owns 12 regional publications including the Mesabi Daily News, Hibbing Tribune, Grand Rapids Herald-Review and Chisholm Tribune Press. In 2010, Southern Cross Media Group Ltd. of Australia walked away from ACM, its U.S. newspaper group, which was forced to restructure with lenders that held nearly $134 million in debt. Since then, numerous top regional executives have been cut, including former President and CEO Charles Johnson, whose management contract was not renewed in 2011.

When ACM restructured, the company owned 100 publications in the United States, including 15 daily and 44 weekly newspapers in nine states.

Plans to build the multi-million-dollar Hibbing printing plant were announced in 2004 by the Superior Publishing Co. division of ACM. The operation, located in a structure designed to house a chop sticks factory, consolidated work produced by older presses in Virginia and Grand Rapids.

Consolidating printing presses has become a trend in the newspaper industry. In the past few years, Forum Communications has shuttered older presses in Superior and Bemidji.

The move is not expected to affect current printing arrangements at Wisconsin-based ACM newspapers including the Ashland Daily Press, Phillips Bee, the County Journal in Washburn, the Park Falls Herald, the Sawyer County Record in Hayward and Spooner Advocate.

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