Another day, another wave of newspaper staff expecting redundancy. Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT) operator DMGT is about to cut 300 in London, Guardian.co.uk claims, protecting its source. The story says DMGT wants to cut 15 percent from its budget, these jobs representing six percent of the workforce.
DMGT has been doing something of a neverending restructure of late, much of which in the name of cost cuts – but also for multimedia integration. A year ago, it took control of newspaper websites away from Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND)’s integrated media nit and gave it back to individual newspaper teams. In July, it got rid of AND MD Andy Hart, and we were unable to find out whether a replacement is in the offing. In September, it brought its national Associated Newspapers and regional Northcliffe Media divisions under one corporate umbrella, “A&N Media”. The last month, it merged Daily Mail, Mail On Sunday and Mail Online sales teams.
But that was mainly reshuffling execs and sales. The latest report, if true, suggests deeper cuts are coming, with backroom and IT said to be affected. One wonders whether this has anything to do with DMGT’s recent talks with Independent News & Media on sharing back office functions.