Happy Australia D– oh wait. Yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph came with a fetching free bucket hat emblazoned with Australian flags, perfect for spewing in after a few too many Australia Day beers on Thursday. And in support of Australia’s struggling manufacturing industry, the hat was made in … China.
Department of Corrections. A rather embarrassing correction from the UK’s Daily Telegraph on January 21 …
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Front page of the day. How South Carolina’s The State newspaper reported the South Carolina GOP primary:
Assassination always gets the readers returning
“The owner of a Jewish newspaper in Atlanta has said he deeply regrets writing a column suggesting that Israel consider ‘a hit’ on Barack Obama if he stands in the way of the Jewish state defending itself. Andrew Adler told The Guardian he wrote the column in the weekly Atlanta Jewish Times ‘to get a reaction’ from the paper’s readers.” — The Guardian
Fired fake chopper journo doesn’t want job back
“Sacked Channel 9 reporter Melissa Mallet does not want to go back to the station that axed her last year in the wake of the Choppergate scandal. Mallet’s legal team told the hearing into her claim of unfair dismissal at Fair Work Australia that they were no longer asking for reinstatement but were still chasing lost wages.” — News.com.au
News Corp to buy Turkish media group?
“News Corp. is considering a bid for Sabah-ATV, according to people familiar with the matter, adding a new competitor to a small handful of big western private-equity and media companies in the running to possibly buy Turkey’s No. 2 media group.” — Wall Street Journal
The trouble continues at Fairfax
“Analysts and fund managers expect more job cuts at Fairfax Media as media companies continue to struggle against powerful structural and cyclical headwinds. CCZ media analyst Roger Colman believes Fairfax should cut its workforce by more than half, from 11,000 to 5000.” — The Australian
Australian Open serves up win for Seven
“With Aussies such as Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt at play, network shares have soared -including a 40.7% share on Friday and 42.5% on Saturday.” — TV Tonight
Hari no longer an Independent
“Johann Hari, the journalist at the Independent who was suspended for plagiarism, has announced that he will not return to the newspaper.” — The Guardian
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Roger Colman is clearly a moron. It takes very little research to discover that the numbers of Fairfax employees reflect the extent of its accumulation of small local and specialist titles (The Press, The Examiner, Border Mail, The Land, etc) most of which are financially healthy and none of which could be said to be overstaffed. This is why Orion is buying the stock: because that profitability is likely to be sustained for a while yet.
The problem Corbett has is his promise to get $85m out of the cost base. He will have used Bain consultants, his favourites. They will have found that the metro papers, the large metro print ops, the digital business and the head office are the only places to get big savings.
News Corp is not going to help with Fairfax cost savings, so the print merger is probably not on. You’d have to think that they must cut about 1000 staff. The question is: which 1000?
Neither Hywood nor Matthews are cost managers of any credibility.
Expect a messy story come the announcement of first half results. And if not before, expect a big spin on the costs.
At some point this board’s 15 years of experiments with managers who know nothing of management must come to an end. Hopefully before the whole lot is stuffed!