Fairfax Media will cut 115 full-time roles, reduce its casual workforce, review third-party content deals and cap contributor costs in order to pull $30 million of savings out of the business.
The company, which publishes The Australian Financial Review, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, will open a voluntary redundancy round seeking to cut 125 full-time equivalent positions – 10 full-time positions have already left the business in the past month.
Following redundancies, Fairfax expects there will be fewer editorial management, video, presentation and section-writer roles.
Fairfax editorial director Sean Aylmer said in a note to staff that working groups and discussions with staff before Wednesday's announcement provided some original and creative ways to save costs.
"One outcome of the consultation process is that we have changed the top-level management structure," he said.
New or substantially changed roles will include: the creation of a news director, reduction in state-based topics, AM and PM editors replaced by news editors, refocus on the digital editor role, creation of a national creative director, national head of video and new head of travel and food.
Wednesday's editorial structural changes are largely focused on metropolitan newspapers, such as the SMH and The Age.
There will no structural changes at the Financial Review. According the Enhanced Media Metrics Australia, the Financial Review has grown its audience reach to 1.7 million, as of February, up 5 per cent on the same month last year.
Print readership edged down 1 per cent to 939,000, while digital audience grew 9 per cent to 855,000. It has also been growing its subscriber and advertising revenue.
It comes as rival News Corporation Australia slashes $40 million of cost out of its newsrooms, predominantly on is metropolitan daily newspapers, such as The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun.
The company is cutting the majority of its photographers and will rely on small teams based in capital cities and wire agencies. It's also in the process of drastically reducing its production staff.
