The tide of job losses in the media is starting to assume tsunami-like proportions as deals fall over, revenues slow or vanish and even the apparently strongest of outlets and owners are forced to slash deeper and deeper into employment and other costs.
Overnight Tuesday Thomson Reuters, the news and financial information giant revealed plans to cut 4% of its global workforce, or 2,000 jobs at a cost of up to half a billion dollars.
Most of the losses will occur outside the Reuters newsroom which will be quarantined, according to company spokesmen because it is too small and only accounts for around 3% of the annual $US4.5 billion in revenues.
And while job cuts were not announced overnight Wednesday, the New York Times’ owners (The New York Times Co) reported a 19% slide in print ad revenue in the September quarter, and warned there was no sign of that improving.
And a week after revealing plans to cut 2% of its workforce, Gannett, America’s biggest newspaper group, has called off its long attempt to buy tronc, which used to be known as Tribune Publishing and owns the Chicago tribute and LA Times. tronc shares fell 13%, after dropping late last week when news started spreading of doubt about the deal. tronc is now worth just over half the $US900 million value of the Gannett offer (including debt).
They are heading back to $US7 where they were when the bid first came. tronc is now high on the list of America’s shrunken print giants to hit the wall and fallover as the company will be even more exposed to falling print ad revenues, circulations and weak digital revenues growth.
Figures from London-based Enders Analysts earlier this week warned that UK print advertising in its national newspapers will fall faster this year than previously thought. By the end of the year UK national print ad revenues will be down more than 22% compared to the end of 2014 after a fall of 13% this year alone, which is sharply higher than previous estimated.
UK TV ad revenues will be down 1% this year after a rise of 4% to 6% was seen at the start of 2016. But because of the Brexit vote, the fall in the closing months of this year will be 5% to 6% as marketers slash budgets, especially UK supermarkets.
Gannett’s 2% cut equates to around 400 staff and the losses will be everywhere, including in its Washington bureau. News Corp’s Wall Street Journal is seeking “substantial” job cuts in a major restructuring that local News Corp papers have yet to discuss.
The New York Times is working towards a major announcement on job cuts later this year or in early 2017 as it continues to trumpet its overseas expansion, including the UK and Australia. The Daily Mail group in the UK is sacking 200 people and doing a top to bottom review of the entire company to be finished by December.
The Guardian has cut 287 jobs from the paper this year, mostly in the UK, and another 40 are about to be lost from the US operations of the paper’s website – and it is still losing money as ad revenues continue to fall.
Trinity Mirror is stepping up its job cuts, paper closures and consolidation and doubled its cost cuts to more than 40 million pounds. ITV, the big UK commercial TV broadcaster and producer is looking for 45 million pounds in cost cuts and is cutting more than 120 jobs in the next few months.
Postmedia, Canada’s biggest print group is cutting its staffing costs by 20% – or an estimated 800 of its 4,000 employees.Gannett has already cut upwards of 300 jobs in its local papers in the US state of New Jersey.
The New York Times Co. said third-quarter earnings fell sharply as print advertising dropped 19%.
The Times said its overall advertising revenue fell 7.7% in the third quarter, and the company expects a similar decline for the fourth quarter. Digital ad sales, meanwhile, grew 21%, mostly on growth in its mobile platform. But that was not enough to make up for the slump in print ad volumes.
Circulation revenue rose 3% as the company’s digital subscription push and an increase in newspaper home-delivery prices offset a decline in newspaper sales.
At quarter’s end, the paper had 1.56 million paid digital-only subscriptions, compared with 1.42 million as of June 30. The paper report 1.041 at the end of September 2015, so the increase was an impressive 40%.
Over all, the Times reported a profit of $US406,000 for the quarter, down sharply from $US9.4 million.
Operating profit fell to $US million in the third quarter of 2016 from $US21.9 million in the same period of 2015.
Revenue eased 1% to $363.5 million.
