Gannett is preparing to slash salaries by 10% or more as part of a cost-cutting measures that will also include layoffs, according to Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at Poynter.
“The first of the pink slips are tentatively scheduled for Friday,” Edmonds reported, citing a Gannett editor source.
Gannett CEO Mike Reed announced budget cuts on a quarterly earnings call last week after disclosing that the national newspaper chain lost $54 million during the second quarter of 2022.
“A Gannett editor, who I speak with frequently, and who requests anonymity, told me over the weekend of a recent internal memo with a devastating data point: for all Gannett management’s talk of digital transformation, 88 percent of subscription revenue still comes from print,” wrote Edmonds.
The New York Times, which is slightly smaller than Gannett, reported a $76 million profit during the same second quarter.
“For Gannett to weather this downturn and get back on a path of financial success on its own terms does not require outdoing The New York Times, currently valued by Wall Street at 10 times as much,” said Edmonds. “However, it will mean Gannett digging itself out of a deep hole – and maintaining news products still worth paying for — after yet another round of cuts.”
Gannett operates nine daily newspapers in New Jersey: The (Bergen) Record, New Jersey Herald, Daily Record, Courier News, Home News Tribune, Asbury Park Press, Burlington County Times, Courier-Post and Vineland Daily Journal.
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