Last Thursday, as first reported on Capital, Post editor-in-chief Col Allan announced to his staff that the paper was seeking a 10-percent headcount reduction through voluntary buyouts and "other measures if necessary."
Newsroom downsizing has become all too familiar at papers throughout the industry. But it seems particularly significant at the Post, which has managed to avoid such cullings over the past two decades even as it hemorrhages money. The paper's circulation is down as well.
The buyouts follow a round of layoffs on the business side, where nine sales positions were recently eliminated in what publisher Jesse Angelo described in a March memo as a streamlining of marketing and ad operations. They're being negotiated as the Post's parent entity, News Corp., prepares to separate its publishing properties, which also include The Wall Street Journal and various newspapers in the U.K. and Australia, from the company's television and film assets.
As a result of the split, which will create two separate publicly traded companies, the publishing titles will no longer be cushioned by more lucrative brands such as Fox News. But after the expected completion of the split at the end of June, they will start fresh with no debt and $2.6 billion in cash.
One media analyst has estimated that the Post's annual losses are as high as $110 million. But the paper has long been wrapped in a special insulant: News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's devotion to it.
That said, it's unclear what exactly precipitated the newsroom cuts or how much a 10-percent staff reduction will stanch the flow of red ink.
"They're getting costs under control on all fronts," one Post employee suggested, referring to News Corp.
First come the buyouts, then the layoffs, then the second round of layoffs....
Unless the Post can find another "special insultant" like Murdoch to let them lose $100 million+ a year, the paper is not long for this world.
Under Murdoch, the Post has never made money, but that was irrelevant since it was a platform to spread his vicious politics in the nation's media center.
ReplyDeleteIt gives the lie to the old canard that Americans are fed trash because that's what they want. In the case of the Post, people are fed trash because that's what Murdoch has chosen to feed them, even if he has to subsidize it.
It's possible News Corporation shareholders will demand an end to the bleeding, but I wouln't be surprised if he keeps the old fascist rag going, if only as a loudspeaker for his political views.
I think the split between entertainment and news properties really does mean the demise of the Post - especially with Rupert getting older. The rest of the family doesn't have the same fondness for the paper Rupert does. You can bet Elizabeth or James or Lachlan won't feel sad to close a paper bleeding $110 million a year. And as Leonnie pointed out here, Amplify is bleeding money too - if they save anything, it will be the for-profit education business, which at least has an upside. Murdoch in even his drunkest moments knows the news business is in the past.
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