DMGT Slashes 1000 Jobs As Local News Continues To Choke
In a desperate attempt to stay afloat the Daily Mail and General Trust is slashing a whopping 1,000 jobs across its regional newspaper division, Northcliffe Media, which produces more than 110 local publications.
The redundancies come right after they recently sold the debt-ridden Evening Standard for a measly £1 to former KGB lieutenant colonel Alexander Lebedev. Maybe they should get him to take care of the 1,000 people they need gone? Although the Russian billionaire may be a bit busy as he announced plans to run for mayor of Sochi, the Russian Black Sea resort, that will be the frosty wonderland of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The Daily Mail General Trust’s advertising revenue fell by 24 per cent across in its national newspaper division in the first half of 2009 and 37 per cent in its regional titles. The company said that it has already achieved £100m of cost cutting, but thanks to the crashing advertising revenue they are forced to go through with the layoffs.
Although a massive amount of employees are being let go, Peter Williams, finance director, remained delusional and upbeat: “For the past six or seven weeks, revenues have been flat in absolute terms, which means that rates of year-on-year decline will start to improve significantly as the year continues.” Way to faintly praise that damnation, Peter!
It’s not only the DMGT that is succumbing to the gloom of the recession, although they seem to be doing it with the most panache, what with hurriedly selling the Standard to a former spy for not even for the price of a pint and throwing away 1,000 jobs. It’s almost like the corporate version of a celebrity train wreck.
But there are others (many others) moving along the same crash course as DMGT, like Johnston Press that two weeks ago unveiled annual losses of £429m. Their revenue also fell by 12.4 per cent as sales fell. Johnston Press is looking at selling off some of its companies and they chose to axe their Irish publications, and possibly the Scotsman, in order to alleviate their debt. They’re hoping for more than a pound, but aren’t expecting much.
They’ve already faced strikes from Yorkshire Post staff after three of their number got served with compulsory redundancies. They seem to allowed the doom-laden mood to seep into their editorial – check out these headlines from today: “Leeds plans for 10,000 deaths”, “Leeds child rapist jailed”, “Leeds grandad ‘was left to die in hospital shower’”, “Paralysed former soldier loses ‘dignity’ battle”. The “grim up north” stereotypes continue unabated, and for good reason.
Johnston Press and their ilk are undoubtedly valuable while we still languish in the broadband dark ages, but if they can’t find a way to be profitable on the web then they can expect to be superceded by the BBC Local rollout that we’ll hopefully see in the next few years.
Posted by Trista Orchard in Creative Economy | March 24, 2009 1:47PM |