At some point within each quarter, we do a roundup of the layoffs that have plagued the industry. Since there have been several since the start of Q2, here’s a look at which news organizations have been cutting back:
- Last week, Clear Channel made cuts to its sales department. According to Billboard.com, the radio giant is undergoing a restructuring and is rumored to have let 22 people go, reportedly in the Orlando and West Palm Beach, Fla., offices. There is speculation that call centers in each market might be created to make strategy more efficient.
- The Salt Lake Tribune announced earlier this month that is was eliminating eight jobs from the newsroom, including one part-time and seven full-time employees. The paper also dropped its Faith section, and it will possibly be downsizing in its outdoors and business coverage in addition to weather, comics, TV schedules and puzzles. The cuts come on the heels of the dismantling of Project Thunderdome and the announced cuts at Digital First Media, which manages Tribune owner MediaNews Group.
- More ad/sales staff saw the ax come down this month when Hearst cut the entire sales team at Country Living magazine and transferred the responsibilities to sister publications Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day. “Country Living’s edit staff is in Birmingham, and we’re aligning sales to be closer to clients in key markets,” a spokesperson told Ad Age.
- Univision is creating three programming centers, with locations in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Miami, in order to produce customized and localized content, reported LATimes.com. This is reportedly a part of a restructuring that saw the elimination of dozens of employees around the country, although Univision has not confirmed the exact number.
- The worst cuts of the month were at Advance Newspaper’s Star-Ledger, which eliminated positions across all departments and culminated in the layoffs of 167 employees. According to NJ.com, 40 positions out of a total of 156 were cut from the newsroom alone. Meanwhile, another 124 positions were cut from the publisher’s weekly papers in New Jersey and at the dailies in Trenton and South Jersey as well as Easton, Pa. NJ.com lost 15 employees out of 77, leaving a sum of 306 layoffs across the company by the end of the day. The layoffs are a part of a strategy by NJ Advance Media, a new media company representing the Star-Ledger and other Advance-owned New Jersey papers. The goal of the company is to provide content and advertising solutions.
