Seven News Confirms Staff Cuts, As Fairfax Redundancy Rumours Circle

It’s not a good week to work in news media, with the Seven network confirming it will be cutting positions in its newsroom and Fairfax is rumoured to be doing the same.

Seven News, which is still trailing behind Nine News in popularity, has confirmed it will be cutting numbers in the newsroom. Four out of approximately 15 jobs are expected to be retained.

Seven has refused to confirm which staff will be departing. Though Seven Network news boss Rob Raschke and Seven’s Sydney news director Chris Willis have both signed new contracts.

A Seven spokesman told News Corp: “Two people have been redundant. We are redeploying some others — around 12 from a specialist unit — into Seven News and other capital city markets, bolstering those teams. We’re also hiring cadets.”

Seven’s 7pm bulletin will remain. It’s expected Seven will follow similar actions that it did in February 2014, when Today Tonight was cancelled in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The surviving reporters and producers were integrated into Seven News bulletin.

On the Fairfax front, an opinion piece in today’s Rear Window column in the Australian Financial Review said management were preparing “yet another round of major cost-cutting in the news division that contains (what’s left of) The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.”

Rear Window columnist Joe Aston also wrote: “Senior management isn’t denying the axe is being sharpened again, although the precise size of the program is not yet final.

“And it’s a fair enough assumption given chief executive Greg Hywood and CFO David Housego have been telling institutional investors for at least 12 months that costs will continue to be shaved from Allen Williams’ Australian Publishing Media division at an equivalent pace to its fall in revenues. That rate of decline has eased back from double digits to 7 per cent year-on-year.”

“We’ve been through the five stages of grief (the bargaining part was definitely fun) to arrive at acceptance. And when the Holt Street troops get past denial, we’ll be waiting with open arms. Let’s all go long in Kleenex stock.” Aston concluded.

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