Analysis: Johnston's Press's latest acquisitions mean there are few independently owned regional newspapers left in Ireland, writes Emmet Oliver.

Just when valuations had started to cool off and established buyers had displayed some rare self restraint, another purchase comes along to surprise everybody involved in the regional newspaper sector.

The decision by Johnston Press to pay out more than €138 million for the six newspapers owned by the Leinster Leader group has more than just implications for local media.

The scale of the purchase price - all in cash - means that several large newspaper groups are arguably worth several million euro more this morning than they were a week ago.

While some observers will put the Johnston deal down to irrational exuberance by naïve outsiders, this kind of purchase price may yet be repeated, not only in the press arena, but also in the radio sector.

The chief executive of Johnston Press, Tim Bowdler, told The Irish Times yesterday that his company was contemplating further purchases in Ireland, because of growth in the economy and specifically, from healthy returns from press advertising.

Based on the purchase price for the Leinster Leader group, can other newspapers around the country expect to receive over six times their annual revenues when it comes time to sell? Of course, things are not as simple as that.

The Leinster Leader is clearly a fast growing company, with strong franchises in Limerick and on the eastern seaboard. As a whole, the group has a weekly circulation of 92,000, of which 72,000 comprise sales of weekly papers and 20,000 sales of daily papers.

What also attracted Johnston was the state of the art printing works that the Leinster Leader group is building on a greenfield site in Limerick.

This will enable it to print all of its own titles as well as third-party newspapers and will allow it to substantially increase the colour content of its newspaper titles.

Even allowing for these factors, there is little doubt several newspaper owners will be smiling at the kind of valuations being reached for media assets in Ireland.

While Johnston remains keen to make further acquisitions in the press sector and UTV and Emap wish to expand their interests in the radio market, there is one constraint on all the frenzied demand in the newspaper game - supply.

There are simply not that many independently-owned regional and local newspapers left.

Yes, there are quite a large number of smaller titles, but there are only four long-established titles with circulations above 20,000.

For the record, these are the Wexford Echo, Kerry's Eye, the Connacht Tribune and the Clare Champion.

Industry sources suggest that the owners of these papers may not readily sell them.

Furthermore, some of them are facing new competitors on their patch - the Clare Champion for example.

The jewel in this small number is the Connacht Tribune group, but a large number of diverse shareholders control the paper and getting agreement to sell it could prove difficult.

The large British newspaper groups tend to like purchasing titles based in the main cities however, so the Connacht Tribune is likely to remain in their sights regardless of shareholders' reluctant to sell.

In Northern Ireland, Johnston's purchase of Local Press from venture capital company 3i also leaves few independent titles in that market.

The purchase in particular of the Belfast Newsletter is an interesting development.

One of the oldest continuously printed newspapers in Ireland or Britain, the paper has a strong unionist and protestant heritage.

However, strong political convictions appear to have little relevance in the modern media market.

For example, one of the largest local newspaper players in the south now is Lord Kilclooney, the former Ulster Unionist MP.