NEWS 25

Guardian Media Group to cut 250 jobs in bid to break even within three years

Guardian Media Group is planning to cut 250 jobs – including 100 in editorial – and to restructure the less profitable parts of the company in a bid to break even within three years.As part of plans to cut operating losses, which amounted to £58.6m in the year to the end of March, the Guardian and Observer publisher is to give up its ambitions to turn the Midlands Goods Shed, a former train depot, into a large events space and will restructure the less profitable parts of the business. In total, the UK workforce is expected to be cut by 18%, or 310 jobs, as about 60 positions in both commercial and editorial remain unfilled. The company hopes all cuts will be made by voluntary redundancies.

• In total at GMG, some 100 jobs are earmarked to be cut from the 725-strong editorial workforce and 150 from commercial departments, support functions such as finance and human resources and other parts of the business.
• A spokeswoman for the company said there are no plans to close the Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday sister title.
• Half of all GMG costs relate to staff with the current global headcount of 1,960 understood to have grown by 479 since the last round of redundancies in 2012. The 210 people employed outside the UK are not expected to be affected by the latest round of cuts.

Guardian News & Media to cut costs by 20%

 

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In a joint email to staff, editor-in-chief Katharine Viner and chief executive David Pemsel said the “volatile media environment” had led to an “urgent need for radical action”.

Independent, Mirror, Express and Star suffer sharp fall in traffic

The Independent, Mirror and both of Richard Demond’s titles, the Express and Daily Star, suffered sharp falls in daily traffic in February, as most of the UK’s press saw declines in online visitors. The decline follows a surge in digital readership between December – traditionally a weak month due to holidays – and January during which coverage of the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman will have attracted international readers. Only the Sun, which dropped its paywall at the end of November, and the Guardian recorded increases in daily average visitors during the month, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Thursday. All the major national newspaper sites experienced year-on-year growth exceptMail Online, which was down slightly by 2.2% but is still by far the largest site with an average of 14.4m unique browsers a day.

• The Independent’s fall in average unique readers will be especially concerning as the paper is moving to a digital only future when it scraps its print editions this month. On Wednesday the independent launched a new subscription app costing £12.99.
• Meanwhile the picture in print remains bleak, with the vast majority of paid-for national newspapers recording declines, led by the Sun on Sunday whose circulation fell by just over 5%.