The Times editor says editorial staff cuts are part of cross-media changes
The Times editor James Harding, in the wake of announcing the loss of up to 100 editorial jobs, has outlined to staff how his production team have been tasked to stop duplication between its print, iPad, website and Android editions.
In a letter to his staff, Harding explained: “When we moved to the new presses at Broxbourne three years ago, our print deadlines changed to 10.15pm and everybody’s day just got longer.
“We want to change the way we work and our production processes, so that we can deal with the creep of the newspaper day.
“We want to stop the duplication of production, between print, iPad, and website and, most recently, Android. We want to give our production teams the skills to work on all platforms.”
Harding said that despite The Times growing its circulation for “the first time in nearly a decade” – taking into account digital growth – it was a still a business "in transition".
"We are only just beginning to migrate advertising on to the iPad and only just beginning to see what is possible on other platforms,” he said.
“We still have a long way to go to secure our future by putting our paper in profit.”
“It is true that we have returned The Times to circulation growth for the first time in nearly a decade – we have signed up more than 110,000 people who buy the digital editions of The Times every day and, as a result, the number of people buying The Times in print and on screen is up 3 per cent year-on-year.
“We, as a paper, have been through several rounds of cost-cutting in recent years. On previous occasions, the vast bulk of the redundancies have been borne by people on the staff of the paper.
“Colleagues who work as casuals – whether they work pretty much every day of the week or only now and then – have largely been spared. This time, I am afraid that the largest share of cost savings will come from reducing the number of casuals across the paper.
“There will be some redundancies on the staff and some people will lose their retainers, but it is likely that we will see a 30 per cent reduction in the overall number of casual shifts. I cannot be more precise, because we are going to offer a two-week window for people to leave on a voluntary basis.”