With about 1,000 employees, the Freep isn't subject to the 10% job cut imposed yesterday on Gannett's other 83 U.S. dailies in the U.S. Community Publishing division, Publisher Dave Hunke told his paper for a story today. The Freep is part of a separate division that includes USA Today -- the only other paper so far escaping job eliminations in this latest round.(I say "about 1,000 employees" because the Freep doesn't list that information on its official Corporate page. I got that number from a source when I wrote about Detroit's 150 buyouts in June.)
I do not understand why Detroit and USAT are exempt. Do you?
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It's simple as far as USAT is concerned. This is GCI's flagship and most well known brand and the one product that would likely survive any breakup/buyout. Even though a HUGE chunk of its circ comes from free distribution (they say that patrons can check off if they don't want it) at hotels, etc., and even though this paper struggles to achieve 2 or 3% margins, the USA Today is Gannett's Alamo.
ReplyDeleteMy feeling is the Moon ended up at USAT after he was promoted to Executive VP of the Newspaper Division on par with Watson back a few years ago. When it became apparent T. Curley wasn't the heir to his brother's throne at the top, he bolted for the AP and Moon took one on the chin for the team by going over to the USAT. He's never seen a price increase he didn't love (circ or adv), despite falling revenues and readership (disagree? read the whole comment about hotels); and is a holdover from the Curley/McCorkindale....Watson days. In reality, the company can't dump such a high profile publisher as easily as it can push out dissenters at smaller papers.
I suspect Detroit is a bit of a similar situation...and is HEAVILY unionized.
USAT and Detroit are in a separate division. Simple as that.
ReplyDeleteThat division has not made any announcements yet one way or the other.
One of my friends works at the Freep, so I'm glad to hear his job is safe for the moment.
ReplyDeleteAs employees are shown the door, an employer like Gannett may be wise to hang onto their e-mail records. --Ben http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/10/retain-e-mail-of-former-employees.html
ReplyDeleteFor those who are wondering why the Detroit Free Press is not a part of the Community Newspapers Division and is, therefore, not subject to the latest layoffs, here are some of the reasons:
ReplyDelete1/In reality, Gannett controls TWO papers in Detroit: The Free Press AND the News. Yes, I know MediaNews is the official owner of the Detroit News, and I know that MediaNews folks run the newsroom. But Gannett controls the News' budget, and it runs all the business operations for the News. In fact, Gannett gets 95 percent of the profits generated by both papers. Taken together, the Free Press and The News have a combined daily circulation of about 498,000--making the Detroit operation the second largest in Gannett. (In fact, the News' daily circulation of about 180,000 makes it bigger that the Tennessean, one of the bigger papers in Gannett.) The Free Press produces Gannett's biggest Sunday paper in terms of circulation. Moreover, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press Web sites are, combined, the biggest Web site after USA Today in Gannett.
2/ The Free Press and The News are under a federally monitored joint operating agreement. Gannett cannot ravage EITHER paper's resources without drawing the scrutiny of the Justice Department
Actually not much fact in the prior post. Tucson is a JOA and they have had layoffs. The only reason is the one listed on the earlier post. Different divisions have different responsibilities which leads to different timing. The Freep and USAT are in a completely different division from newspapers. Just as broadcasting and Newsquest are different divisions. Each is treated separately.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a question of exempt from anything.