Leaked News Corp documents show financial state of its Australian newspapers
Source: Crikey
Leaked confidential News Corp financial documents have shown the Australian newspaper division dropped $320m in ad revenues and cut one in eight jobs in the 2012-13 financial year.
The documents, obtained by independent news website Crikey (paywall), reveal previously unproven claims about the collapse of News Corp print revenues with the publisher losing $320m in advertising revenue in 2012-13 and shedding more than 1,000 jobs that year.
Crikey’s publication of the documents has drawn an angry response from News Corp CEO Julian Clarke who said in a statement: “The figures quoted are 14 months out of date, have been illegally circulated and are not from our statutory accounts. They do not reflect the current performance of the business.”
This is what happens when you let employees go and they hold a grudge.
I know, they should drop more money into EMMA and boost their readership numbers even further. This will fix it.
They could hire Mike Carlton.
Both news and fairfax are in the same boat. Both release annual results with massive spin, claiming everything is on the up and up ( which market analysts swallow hook, line and sinker). But for both, the reality is that their core publishing business are on the skids and on a road to nowhere ( except down). . For both, their publising businesses are propped up /subsidised by their digital and non publising assets . Fairfax by Domain and proceeds from the sale of Trademe, news by REA , foxtel and foxsprts. News is in a better position though – it’s non-publishing assets are bigger, better and more numerous than fairfax
“They are 14 months out of date. They do not reflect the current performance of the business”.
That means things are probably a lot worse now.
Lets watch News Limited cover up as much as possible…then blame Kim Wiliiams for all the mistakes.
I recall Ken Cowley making a few derogatory comments recently …only to be publicly savaged and then thrown on the scrap heap by News Limited.
Same company …continual denial…. and then blame someone else.
Ah…forgot to mention that recent court case [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
So that will be another News v Fairfax bitch-off today then…joy.
Very prescient @Siri. It didn’t take them long. This piece of penetrating analysis from Darren Davidson in today’s The Australian – “Ghosts of Williams’ strategy laid bare as News forges ahead”
Fairfax in no position to point fingers. Its newspaper business is an equally parlous state and the have lost just as many staff.
Geez,
Hundreds of hard-working journos on News titles other than The Australian must be spewing to learn the average wage is $174,000 at the protested species..
Talk about inequity…what a kick in the guts.
news Corp CEO dismisses the figures in the grounds they “certainly do not reflect the company’s current performance”. Great – care to tell us what the company’s current performance actually is, then?
News Corp needs to focus on their own business rather than attacking their competitors. They really are a pathetic excuse for a company.
Bahaha, saw it coming a mile off and legged it. Absolute joke of an operating environment.
“Hey everyone, if we stick our heads DEEPER into the sand, it’ll get better!”
Maybe if News spent the same time and energy on getting its own house in order as it does relentlessly attacking the Fairfax business and various other perceived enemies (APC, ABC etc) , they might be in a better state. Talk about people in glass houses….
Don’t you worry about that. We’ll just get EMMA to massage the figures then publish a story in the Telegraph saying that readership and revenue is up.
Murdoch himself has just come out saying he will sue any media org that reports on the leaked News Ltd report. This from a company that relies on leaks and leaked reports for many of its stories, and which relishes reporting on leaked documents from rivals (eg the internal Fairfax document with restructuring recommendations from Bain just a few weeks ago). Hilarious. Seems they can dish it out (in spades) but can’t take it when tables are turned. The truth hurts.
@minnie – very true. The difference is that Fairfax doesn’t obsessi over what is/isn’t happening over at News, or use their mastheads to pursue their own petty agenda against their rivals and other “enemies”. fairfax are just getting on with it
The one number in this that’s hard to believe is the $174,000 average for hacks on The Oz. It’s hard to believe a down table sub or day to day news grunt would be earning anywhere near that. Still, plenty of chief propagandist Chris Mitchell’s columnist mates and section heads who know that their pay packet depends on toeing the Rupert line would be on that and then some … pity nobody with an inquiring mind reads them any more.
Pretty sure the hacks and flacks are not pulling $174k.
So remind me why all the angst and envy confected by Newscorpse following its publication of the leaked ABC senior journos pay rates?
Kan anyone say karma?
The Internet isn’t the whole story behind the drop in sales for News Corp.
The content of both papers, Daily Telegraph and Australian has become more and more Ideologically conservative mouthpiece, much of the content is cringe worthy.
Surely this has had an impact on their sales, I know one newsagent that refused to sell the tele after the whole ‘kick this mob out’ front page’.