Yesterday came news that a leading US media analyst has cut his 2009 earnings forecast for the global News Corporation and believes the media company could see a 50 per cent fall in profits this financial year.
Now I hear that on Friday of next week there will be a top level meeting of the Australian lieutenants, including Peter Macourt and John Hartigan, to talk about the coming year. Axings and remodellings are believed to be on the agenda.
The meeeting is being seen by insiders as a council of war in preparation for the visit of Rupert Murdoch the following week. He will be in the country for his mother’s 100th birthday.
News Limited has had a softly-softly approach to redundancies. People have been quietly tapped on the shoulder. The quiet approach means that no one section of the organisation can see the scale of the cuts, but the knife is being wielded everywhere.
One went recently from Holt St corporate affairs. Late last year the Holt St editorial training manager went and has not been replaced. But in truth there are no areas of the organisation that haven’t been touched.
Fairfax manages to make the big headlines with its, ahem, unique public relations style, but there have nevertheless been stories from throughout the Australian outpost of empire to suggest strain and austerity.
Regional and suburban newspapers, already lean, are now skeletal and even missing a few bones. A number of aged subs have disappeared from the metro dailies. There might not have been a big fuss and a scaring of the horses, as at Fairfax, but it has happened nevertheless.
It sounds like the troops should be bracing for more, and worse. John Hartigan said when he got his Walkley Award last year that he would never slash the journalism. Can he keep his word? Can any newspaper boss?
One Comment
Almost spot on Margaret. Though Hartigan has already knocked the clock as far as numbers go, with cuts of about 1000 so far. News is doing this everywhere. They have had two rounds in the UK papers. WSJ is having a pay freeze after round one. Fox Interactive has been slicing all over and shuttered a couple of areas. They just don’t say much about it. In Oz, of course, they don’t have to because the local business ain’t “material” in the global scheme of News. Of course Hartigan would never slash. Just might burn a little. Or whatever Rupert wants (and what he wants is to not lose face on the WSJ promises.)