Fox Sports News staff facing redundancies
Staff at Fox Sports News are being offered redundancies in the wake of News Limited converting to a new editorial system this month.
The move comes almost a year after News Limited increased its stakeholding in Foxtel, giving the company full ownership of Fox Sports.
News Limited said the merger with Fox Sports had “unfortunately” impacted a number of roles at Fox Sports News. The company refused to reveal the total number of jobs affected.
“As part of this integration, we are continually looking at ways of working smarter and more efficiently,” a News Limited spokesman told Encore. “We are offering a voluntary redundancy program and hope to redeploy a number of those remaining within the broader News Limited business. Those leaving the business will be given their full entitlements and be offered support services.”
Encore has also learned details of a previous plan, which has since been shelved, for News Limited to move sports reporters away from newspapers and to the Fox Sports headquarters. The move was to be spearheaded by former HWT editor-in-chief Phil Gardner. Last week News Limited announced Gardner’s sudden departure from the company.
“They wanted to move sport out from under newspapers and move it to Fox Sports,” a News Limited source told Encore. “It was all part of Phil’s plan and he was going to go to Sydney to help streamline that. Then the Sydney bosses went cold on the idea and it was shelved.”
The plan would have seen the sports desks of major tabloid newspapers The Daily Telegraph in Sydney and the Herald Sun in Melbourne fall under the Fox Sports umbrella. Encore understands this would have seen the departments move to a different location and be rebranded.
The News Limited insider said: “They were going to move the sports guys out from Holt Street to Artarmon where the Fox Sports facility is. They were also going to do the same in Melbourne and have HWT Sports move to South Melbourne where Fox Sports is.”
Cameron Boon and Nic Christensen
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This is a little vague, are they talking about sacking the online reporters? Interesting move cause the online side went through a bit of a hiring spree ~6 months ago…
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