Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood has said today's restructures, including the shedding of 1,900 staff, are the result of a range of factors conflating the media company's position.
Fairfax will undergo a wholesale restructure of its operations including the redundancies of 1,900 staff over the next three years. AdNews understands 300 of the staff facing the axe will come from its Metro division.
In an email to staff attained by AdNews, chief executive Greg Hywood said: “Let me be clear - the pressures on Metro – are not because the editorial is not good enough, or the sales team has missed opportunities, or that cost control has been less than rigorous. We are confronting a 'perfect storm' of structural and cyclical forces – and it is global. And the Metro business has to stand alone as a profitable business.
“It will be no surprise to you anybody that our metropolitan publications are at the heart of huge structural changes – changes well understood in the global media environment.
"While some of the decisions that we are announcing today were very hard to make - others were exciting because of what they will unlock and problems they will solve. All are necessary, all are inevitable - and we will not, and have not, shied away from making them. We know there is no choice.
"Very significant change must happen and must happen now. We will not abdicate our responsibility to secure the future of the company.
“We have the readers. We have the audiences. The changes today are ensuring we have the business model and cost base to match – and to ensure the entirety of our business is in the shape it must be."
Today, Fairfax announced it will move to a tabloid format for the its metropolitan mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the closure of its Chullora and Tullamarine printing plants and a restructure of its Metro editorial teams.
More to come.
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