Nine boss Sneesby takes a Greek holiday after announcing 200 job losses
Nine’s CEO Mike Sneesby is currently holidaying in Greece, jetting off for a week-long sojourn mere hours after hitting send on a company-wide email informing staffers of up to 200 job losses.
Sneesby notified staff of the job losses in an email on Friday, citing “the loss of revenue from the Meta deal and challenges in the advertising market”, and stressing the need to “continue to responsibly manage costs”.
He was then spotted in the First Class lounge at Sydney Airport later that day, set to attend the wedding of a family member in Greece, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“Last financial year we were able to improve the efficiency of our operations,” Sneesby had told staffers hours earlier, “but in light of recent market events we are reviewing key parts of our business to identify further potential savings”.
Cuts will begin in the publishing division, where it is reported as many as 90 roles will be lost, across the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Australian Financial Review, Brisbane Times, and WAtoday.
“It is not something we want to do but it is something we need to do to continue to build on a successful platform of high-quality journalism and digital journalism and digital subscription growth,” Sneesby said.
In a separate note to staff, managing director of Nine Publishing, Tory Maguire, said: “The publishing division is going to have to make significant savings in FY25, right across the business.” Maguire is expected to give more information to her division on Monday.
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance called for the country’s largest commercial media organisations to “commit to quality journalism rather than look for easy savings by cutting editorial jobs”, as its Nine members passed a motion of no confidence in Sneesby.
MEAA media acting director Michelle Rae said Nine, as well as Seven and News Corp – both in the middle of massive restructuring – should look elsewhere for savings.
“Any cuts to editorial will mean reduced coverage of a range of matters and result in a less informed Australian public,” she said.
“They bring into question how committed Nine, Seven and News Corp are to quality, public interest journalism.
“We will do all we can to support our members during this difficult time and advocate for media organisations to protect journalism by looking for other options to make savings.”
Mumbrella has contacted Nine for comment.
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Man goes to holiday of family member that’s probably been in the diary a year.
Groundbreaking stuff.
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Needs to chill out before using redundant staff’s pay packets to have an all expenses paid trip to Paris for the Olympics
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He doesn’t hold a hose, mate.
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New series of Getaway with Mike will be sick. Los Angeles last month, Greece this month!
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Clearly a very caring CEO. Read the room mate!
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Head of publishing is also taking a holiday to Fiji next week while staff swirling.
The executive team knew that end of FY was going to cause chaos, yet here we are. Leadership in action.
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What has this got to do with him going to a wedding in Greece? Something that probably has been in this calendar for over a year! Unless it was paid for directly from the company, it has nothing to do with the story other than to push the old but damaging trope that CEOs are fat cats who are not human. Well done. The focus should have only been on whether the decision to cut staff was a poor one should be examined here (remembering these decisions are about steering a company as a whole and keeping it afloat – not about axing jobs for fun) – not the personal life of the ceo and his family.
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