More job cuts at News Corp as restructure hits metro operation
There will be more job losses at News Corp Australia as the organisation attempts to reshape its operations to “meet the needs of customers and clients”.
The latest round of changes will see production and editorial roles syndicated across various city-based mastheads, including Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s Herald Sun.
“These initiatives to reposition News Corp Australia for growth will involve some job role changes and regretfully, some job losses,” a News Corp spokesperson told Mumbrella in a statement.
Content across some of News Corp’s metro titles will be syndicated
News Corp said the changes were necessary to focus on its digital operation, grow digital subscriptions and be less complex for advertisers to leverage.
This lack of complexity was also cited last month when News Corp closed over 100 print titles across its regional and community offering, with 14 mastheads disappearing completely.
In doing so, executive chairman Michael Miller said the city-based mastheads would double down on their state focus with increased regional content.
This week’s announcement, however, means there will be more collaboration across the states.
In addition, News Corp will establish a specialist sports newsroom and focus on its News Wire service after severing ties with Australian Associated Press (AAP).
“At a local level our focus is on developing our successful community news coverage approach which now makes up 50 per cent of our fast-growing subscription business. At a state and national level, we are going to better coordinate and harness our considerable journalist talent across Australia. Consequently, we’re establishing a new specialist sports newsroom, a group of senior and specialist national news reporters, the News Wire news service and a production centre of excellence to streamline production processes to bring together our most senior and talented production staff,” the statement said.
News Corp said it had been “very clear in recent months” about its future direction.
Mumbrella understands the job losses will involve editorial as well as commercial roles.
News Corp will also soon be closing its women’s content network, Whimn.
The company, like many other media organisations, has had its struggles exacerbated by COVID-19 and the consequent slump in advertising revenue. In recent months, Nine has suspended various print liftouts, while Ten has closed 10 Daily, although the media company did claim this was unrelated to the pandemic. Buzzfeed Australia’s news operation has also ceased, and Bauer Media has made hundreds of redundancies and stand-downs across its titles and those formerly owned by Seven West Media’s Pacific Magazines.
They would say that wouldn’t they?
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That should read, “meet the needs of the board and shareholders”.
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