News will have to rely more on The Australian and its network of metropolitan and regional papers (plus its strategic partner The West Australian) to share the content around. Since the start of 2020 we have already seen reports from The Australian appearing in the business session of the Herald Sun, while The Australian’s sport session has articles from Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph.
I’ll say the biggest loser from the closure of AAP will be Australian Community Media, and the foreign-language papers across the country like Neos Kosmos. Without AAP, they will have copy articles from other news websites, which will lead to legal issues.