The once venerable The Australian, News Corp’s flagship publication, and where it began for Rupert Murdoch nationally, has found a resting place with Vogue.
In the seagull management style of billionaire scions, Lachlan Murdoch flew into Sydney last week to bandaid the leaking ship through a restructure – the common corporate euphemism for firing a lot of people.
He was accompanied by Rebekah Brooks, head of News UK, and famous for her involvement in the News International phone hacking scandal, from which she emerged scot-free in the eyes of an Old Bailey’s judge, albeit not so in the public perception. Nevertheless, Rupert rewarded her with a promotion, while her partner-in-hacking, Andrew Coulson, was sacked as David Cameron’s advisor and later went to jail for 18 months.
It is unclear what her role has been in the restructuring, although any discussion on journalism ethics is unlikely to have been on the agenda.
The restructure
According to our (but not Lachlan’s) friends over at Crikey ($), “The restructure will see News Corp divided into three divisions — “fast and free”, which includes news.com.au and the e-commerce platforms, “premium communities”, which includes the capital city mastheads and sport, and “prestige”, which accounts for national broadsheet The Australian, as well as titles like Vogue Australia.”
Apart from senior redundancies and reassignments announced yesterday, it is not yet clear how many staff will be laid off. The SMH reports ($) that head-office is seeking $65 million in annual savings.
Those savings are undoubtedly needed. News Corp Ltd reported a 1% drop in revenue for the third quarter, to $US2.42B, and a 29% drop in profit, to $US42M—or 1% of revenue.
The Australian News Corp business is in apparent decline on all fronts, except for RealEstate.com (REA), which grew revenue by 15% in the third quarter.
Add to that, the expected loss of Facebook’s hush-money, and the writing is on the wall for a further decline in the fortunes of News Corp’s Australian business.
Kim Wingerei is a businessman turned writer and commentator. He is passionate about free speech, human rights, democracy and the politics of change. Originally from Norway, Kim has lived in Australia for 30 years. Author of ‘Why Democracy is Broken – A Blueprint for Change’.