Redundancies at the Guardian

Not good news. The Guardian is a beacon amongst mainstream media

Guardian redundancies offered after losses

Journalists at The Guardian and Observer newspapers have been asked to consider taking voluntary redundancy after they reported losses of more than STG40 million ($61.43 million) in the last year.

The Age,

18 July, 2012

Staff were told that the two papers and their website, collectively known as Guardian News and Media, had an operating loss of STG44.2 million in 2011-12.

The papers, which have pioneered an open access approach to their journalism and do not charge online readers, reported a 16.3 per cent rise in digital revenue to STG45.7 million in 2011-12 and saw their online audience grow 38 per cent to 67.8 million monthly unique browsers from March 2011 to March 2012.

A GNM spokeswoman said it was "on course" to save STG25 million by the end of a five-year program to focus more on online publishing by 2016-17.

"As part of that, in editorial we aim to reduce costs by STG7 million to fund investment and GNM has this week re-opened the voluntary redundancy program for editorial," she said.

The spokeswoman said "investment in digital platforms and set-up costs for the five-year transformation program" was partly responsible for the operating loss.

Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger said: "Having the foresight to start exploring digital platforms as early as 1999 has given us a great foundation on which to build a secure future for The Guardian.

"This has been an extraordinary year for our journalism, all the more so for having the largest ever audience for our work."