Dubai Jobs Recruitment Wadi Jobs : Boston newspaper forced to cut jobs as revenues plunge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 29, 2009 -- Newsroom employees have until the end of the week to decide whether to take buyout offers that would help the Globe eliminate as many as 50 positions, or 12 per cent of newsroom staff, according to Robert Powers, a newspaper spokesman.

The Globe, harder hit by an industrywide slump, is weighing on Times Co.'s results as more readers get their news online and marketers cut spending.

The New York Times newspaper's average weekday circulation dropped 3.1 per cent last year to 1.03 million, while the Globe's slumped 11 per cent, according to Times Co.'s annual report.
"They'll have no choice but to lay more people off," said Larry Grimes, who buys and sells media companies for investment bank W.B. Grimes & Co. in Gaithersburg, Maryland. "You don't want to sell a newspaper in this environment."

The buyouts are one way Times Co. is trying to save money as print sales decline. The publisher has halted its dividend, put its minority stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team up for sale and agreed to sell the space it occupies in its Manhattan headquarters for $225 million (Dh825.7 million) to pay down debt.

The company also trimmed the Globe's advertising sales team.

"Our cost-cutting efforts are ongoing, and that's true across all of our properties," said Catherine Mathis, a Times Co. spokeswoman. "It's simply the environment we're in, and the Globe would certainly not be immune to that."

The publisher has not announced any plan to sell the Globe, Mathis said. Globe Editor Martin Baron declined to comment on the buyouts.

The Globe has lost daily circulation every year since 2004, a 28 per cent drop over the period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Revenue for New England Media Group, which includes the Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and their websites, fell 12 per cent last year. Sales at New York Times Media Group, including the newspaper and nytimes.com, declined 6.2 per cent.

The New England unit made up about 18 per cent of Times Co.'s media revenue last year, down from 19 per cent in 2007 and 23 per cent in 2001.

The Globe will need to consider further cost-saving measures, including job cuts, said Barry Lucas, an analyst at Rye, New York-based Gabelli & Co.

"The Times will have to negotiate this out with their unions, get some concessions because it's going to be very difficult to find a buyer" for the Globe, he said.

© Gulf News 2009

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