Layoffs At The NY Post

Without the News Corp entertainment division to support the $110 million a year loss leader known as the NY Post, there is going to have to be some "belt-tightening":

Brooklyn court reporter Mitch Maddux and staff writer Pedro Oliveira Jr. are among those that sources tell Capital have lost their jobs at the New York Post today in a round of layoffs that was foreshadowed last month when editor Col Allan announced he was seeking a reduction of 10 percent of the paper's staff.

Also losing their jobs, according multiple sources, were "a lot of people" on the video staff, as well as members of the photo and copy desks and one person from the library. And Daily Racing Forum reporter David Grening, who used to work at the Post, reports that three racing writers and handicappers were laid off including John Da Silva and Ed Fountaine; that's remarkable, he points out, since it's the day before the Belmont Stakes.

A memo from Allan provided to Capital by a source and first published by Jim Romenesko broke the news that the Post was laying off a total of 13 employees today "across the organization." A Post source said that today's layoffs were all in editorial.

Last month, we broke the news that Allan was seeking a 10-percent reduction in the newspaper's headcount, hoping to the extent possible to forestall layoffs by offering buyout packages to selected employees first.

A Post spokesperson confirmed that the paper has achieved the 10-percent reduction through a combination of buyouts and layoffs. By our count, that brings the total number of newsroom positions eliminated at the Post to about two dozen.

...

The layoffs come 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.

The Post is the sixth most widely-read paper in the U.S., but during the six months between October and March, its combined print and digital average weekday circulation fell 9.9. percent year-over-year to 500,521, including 299,950 print copies, according to data released last week by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Post's average Sunday circulation plummeted 18.5 percent to 353,900 during the same period.

Those print numbers are jive, because they hand out free copies to schools and claim that as part of the circulation

The financial reality at the Post is dire and, barring some miracle, the paper is not long for this world.