News Corp Australia continues rolling out redundancies
News Corp Australia has made more redundancies over the past few days, following the initial announcement of a major executive restructuring.
Over the last fortnight, the company let go Michael Wilkins, managing director of the company’s national sport brands, Marcus Hooke, general manager of print production, news.com.au’s editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy, and Editorial Innovation Centre director John McGourty.
Peter Blunden, News Corp Australia’s former national executive editor has had a request to reduce his responsibilities reduced to three days a week approved.
In the midst of this, News Corp released a press release announcing: “News Corp Australia today appointed recognised media industry executive Ian Paterson to lead its New South Wales sales team as General Manager, Advertising Sales, NSW.”
Over the past few days, Michael Desiere, Dynamic Sales Leader, Penny Addison, Senior Content Manager, Trade Marketing, and Alexandra Bliekast, Head of National Trading & NSW Consortium Agencies and Global Solutions Team Lead have been confirmed to have lost their roles at the company.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age this week claimed that up to 40% of sales staff were on the cusp of being made redundant.
A News Corp spokesperson told Mumbrella this report was false.
“Like most companies we do not provide commentary on employment matters but the story that first appeared in the Nine Entertainment tabloids, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, contained multiple errors, including the egregiously false claim 40 percent of sales staff were to lose their jobs,” the spokesman said.
“The published story still contains significant errors and we would appreciate having the opportunity to consider and respond to questions rather than media outlets automatically assuming these reports are correct.”
News Corp Australia have declined to comment further on the matter of specific redundancies.
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Who is Ian replacing? Strange to be announcing hires while making a large number of people redundant.
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The irony of their statement:
“The published story still contains significant errors and we would appreciate having the opportunity to consider and respond to questions rather than media outlets automatically assuming these reports are correct.” What goes around, comes around….
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It’s been noticeable that News Corp has remained quite tight-lipped with agencies regarding the recent redundancies and those affected. This lack of communication has created uncertainty, particularly as we are currently negotiating for the fiscal year with several clients and are now unsure about the appropriate points of contact.
Additionally, it’s curious that just a few weeks ago, the GM of Ad Sales was actively communicating with us, only to suddenly depart and be immediately replaced by Ian Paterson. This rapid transition raises questions, especially considering the typical protocols around redundancy and role replacement. It’s generally understood that a position made redundant shouldn’t be filled immediately, which makes this situation appear somewhat irregular.
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NewsCorp tears taste so sweet…
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They need to start clearing out the journos who copy and paste from TikTok or reddit articles.
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I am not going to read or patronise any News Corp publications until they are not biased and interested only in enhancing the profitability of the company.
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Strange editorial decisions casting doubt on the Nine story but continue splashing on the many cuts at News…?
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They are essentially dismantling all centralised functions such as sports, audio, and food and moving them back into the Mastheads. Pandering to the whinging of inept print editorial. So, more wasted cost and resourcing on multiples of the same function with little to no strategy. It’s a seven-year cycle. Let’s all take bets to see when they centralise again.
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Remove Rupert and the rest of his evil rightwing family and their compliant deluded staff members. He is a stain on competent journalism.
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