The logic of sharing print facilities in the Western Australian capital of Perth has evolved to discussion of merging the businesses of its daily and Sunday newspapers.

News Corp Australia publishes the Sunday Times, printing it and local editions of national daily The Australian at a plant equipped in the 1990s with three manroland Geoman presses.

Across town, West Australian Newspapers - part of Kerry Stokes' Seven West Holdings - publishes the West Australian six days a week, printing it at a KBA-equipped print site which includes both coldset and heatset capacity.

And in Mandurah, 70 km to the south, Fairfax Media has also upgraded its manroland- Uniset-equipped print site to include heatset capacity. Heatset printer PMP has also upped capacity in recent years.

With falling print circulations, the outcome has been increased competition for the available contract work, and higher production costs for each of the titles involved.

Now The Australian has reported that talks are underway which may see the Sunday Times sold to Seven West, presumably making the closure of News Corp Australia's Perth Print site.

The paper's Jake Mitchell says talks have recognised the logic of the city's one daily and one Sunday paper being merged, and that "high-level discussions" have focused on Seven buying the Sunday Times, rather than News buying the West Australian because of the synergies open to Seven West, which owns the local Seven Network TV station.

According to the report, which quotes ABC figures, the Sunday Times circulation is 188,480, while 'The West' sells 149,186 Monday to Friday (July-Sept 2015).

It is suggested a deal would include an arrangement to print and distribute The Australian, WA figures for which are not quoted, but will have slipped from the 11,000 a day when the presses were installed.

News has a 24/7 digital presence in WA though its PerthNow website, which burst into print with a special edition ahead of the Australia Day bank holiday (January 26), and promised more specials to mark upcoming 'long weekends'.

A reported 50,000 copies of a 40-page tabloid were distributed to commuters, residents, and businesses, supported by advertisers including IGA supermarkets.

Both News and Fairfax have produced print specials for their Perth websites before, in 2012 and 2009 respectively. A spokesman said PerthNow would consider regular mid-week editions if the specials were successful, although there were no immediate plans.

News and Seven West jointly own the Community Newspapers Group series of suburban newspapers, and Mitchell says the two have "certainly grown closer in recent years". He cites Seven's partnership in digital streaming venture Presto (with News Corp's half-owned subscription TV business, Foxtel), and an agreement for Lachlan Murdoch's Nova Entertainment to run Radio X Factor, a spin-off from Seven's X Factor talent show over the last couple of years.

West Australian Newspapers commissioned its KBA Colora and Comet presses and new Ferag mailroom in 2008/9, at Osborne Park, a location to which the newspaper's offices and now the Seven News studios have now relocated. Its former flagship Newspaper House in St George's Terrace is now a multi level dining venue called the Print Hall and including the curiously-named Apple Daily and Bob's bars.

The possibility that Seven West would consider acquiring newspaper assets in the eastern states has been canvassed before, and it is questionable whether it would follow the Perth developments, even with media reform. Fairfax Media would make an ideal partner but appears to favour the Nine TV network, while Seven West chief executive Chris Wharton told GXpress a couple of years back that the only circumstances under which he would be buying Fairfax would be "from the liquidator".

Peter Coleman