Newspapers have been making headlines of their own of late, generally for all the wrong reasons as a deluge of red ink hits the industry's collective balance sheet.

National newspapers are making wholesale redundancies, and the regional press is coming to terms with the shockwaves caused by an abrupt fall-off in the local advertising revenue that up until now has been the lifeblood of operations.

American giant Gannett, which owns Newsquest, recently reported a 35.3% fall in classified advertising in its UK titles (property ads slumped by nearly 60%), along with a $5.2bn write-down in the value of its newspaper assets that caused its own share price, and those of a raft of peer companies, to fall.

All this is impactful on UK print in a variety of ways. What will the newspaper industry's contraction mean for the number of supplements produced, and the volume of inserts included in the papers? Will newspaper publishers become more creative with giveways such as the special guides, posters and other printed ephemera that can lead to a boost in circulation? If that sort of creative marketing comes to the fore, it could be good(ish) news for print.

The other facet that interests me is how our newspaper-owned commercial printers will be affected by any turmoil at head office. For example, Southernprint is owned by the aforementioned Newsquest. Garnett Dickinson is part of a group that also publishes the Rotherham Advertiser and Rotherham Record. Precision Colour Printing is owned by Claverley Group, the privately-owned publisher of the Shropshire Star, among other titles. And Trader Media Group, with a print wing comprising Apple Web Offset and Acorn Web Offset, is jointly owned by Guardian Media Group and Apax Partners.

In the good old days when newspaper publishers were making nice fat margins I imagine their print plants were, in some cases, shielded by the parent company's profits. Things are very different now.