News Corporation’s more than 100 Australian newspapers will stop printing

News Corporation’s more than 100 Australian newspapers will stop printing

News group, under the name of media giant Rupert Murdoch, announced that it would stop printing more than 100 Australian newspapers by the end of June, 36 of which would be completely closed and 76 would be converted into digital newspapers. The newspapers will retain a total of 375 employees, but it is not sure how many will be cut, News Corp said. According to the media, it is estimated that hundreds of people will lose their jobs. According to News Corporation’s 2019 annual report, there are 10000 employees in all departments in Australia.
Paul Murphy, President of the Australian Federation of media, entertainment and the arts, points out that over the past decade, 4000 press positions have disappeared. The outbreak exacerbated the crisis, with as many as 150 newsrooms across Australia suspended work and employees on leave. It’s hard to say how many people will be able to resume work after the outbreak.
30% reduction
Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Group Australia, said the new crown epidemic affected the sustainability of community and regional newspaper publishing. During the quarantine period, Australian readers relied more on credible media, which increased the audience of digital newspapers by more than 60%, while newspaper advertisements, which accounted for most of the revenue, were declining rapidly.
Many of News Corp’s newspapers face challenges, Miller said, adding to the isolation measures and the impact of platforms such as Google and Facebook, which make their distribution unsustainable. “These initiatives are significant and involve fundamental changes in our business, but they are necessary.” Mr Miller said layoffs were “inevitable”.
According to reports, three newspapers serving Sydney’s wealthiest districts, the Wentworth courier, the Mosman daily and the north shore times, will be published normally because of their considerable real estate advertising revenue.
In the three months to the end of March, News Corp. lost $1 billion. As the impact of the new crown epidemic continues, the group is expected to suffer more financial losses. News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said the group will usher in a new wave of cost cutting. He said he would give up three-quarters of his bonus, while executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has given up all his bonuses.
Paul Murphy, President of the Australian media, entertainment and Arts Alliance, said he was still waiting for News Corporation to make clear how many editors and editors would be affected. Some media quoted sources as saying that the rate of layoffs could be as high as 30% of the company’s total employees.
David o Loughlin, President of the Australian Local Government Association, said the restructuring was a blow to local communities. He doubts whether digital newspapers can survive for a long time, because the new crown epidemic has forever cut off the connection between local media and local advertising. “The shift to digital is just another slow step towards extinction.”
“We’ve seen more than 100 regional newspapers across the country go out of print. It really highlights the scale of the crisis facing the local media in the country, and the epidemic has exacerbated the crisis.” Murphy said. During the outbreak, many small newspapers, especially those focusing on catering, art and entertainment, were even more difficult.
As of mid May, more than 150 newsrooms in Australia have been temporarily or permanently closed this year, according to media reports. News giants are also hard to escape. In March, the 85 year old Australian associated press announced that it would close its business in June, which would lead to about 180 people losing their jobs. In April, news group announced that the epidemic led to a sharp decline in advertising revenue and suspended the printing of 60 regional newspapers in Australia.
The situation in magazines is equally bleak. Bauer media fired 200 employees and stopped publishing seven fashion, lifestyle and celebrity magazines after buying seven West media’s Pacific magazines business for $40 million.
Traditional media ushers in winter
Murdoch’s media empire is not the only one hit by the epidemic. Before News Australia decided to restructure its news business, publishing groups in the United States and the United Kingdom took similar actions, slashing staff, salaries or leave, and cutting costs.
Abernay, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, said researchers had long been concerned that the recession “could lead to the extinction of newspapers.”.
As readers are eager to get news about the new crown in time, the number of readers of media digital platform has increased dramatically. However, during the epidemic, the business of hotels and retail industry suffered a lot, many enterprises temporarily closed down, and the advertising expenditure was cut; in addition, many advertisers wanted to avoid the epidemic related content when carrying out promotional activities, so publishers failed to benefit from the advertising promotion.
Tracy de groose, executive chairman of newsworks, a marketing agency jointly invested by national newspapers in the UK, said that despite a substantial increase in readers’ demand for credible and accurate reports, the advertising “blacklist” prevented advertisements from appearing next to online reports with the new crown virus. “If the outbreak continues for another three months, the total loss of our news brands is expected to reach £ 50m, which will threaten our ability to fund high-quality news.”
Due to quarantine measures, distribution revenue fell by 17% in April this year, and total advertising revenue fell by 46% – of which paper newspaper advertising fell by 69% and digital advertising by 16%, the daily mail group said.
The shift of advertising spending to online platforms such as Facebook and Google has also hit paper media. Brian Han, an analyst at Morningstar, an investment research firm, said the share of Australian newspapers in advertising spending had fallen from 30% in 2010 to 5% today due to digital disruption. In the network era, the cost of capital intensive printing mode and labor-intensive distribution mode is too high.
In recent years, some well-known paper media have realized revenue diversification by increasing millions of digital subscribers, but many companies still rely heavily on advertising. According to a recent survey of 20 global news publishers conducted by the international news media association, the median decline in advertising sales in 2020 is expected to be 23%. In the United States, newspaper advertising revenues have fallen 20 to 30 per cent year-on-year in the past few weeks, according to a report by FTI consulting.

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Post time: Jun-04-2020

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