Newspapers’ eventual decision to “integrate” teams comes along at the same time as the economic crunch, allowing publishers to make redundancies not with a malign precept but under the auspices of much-needed restructuring for the digital age…
Latest to do that is Associated Newspapers, which will merge Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT) and Mail On Sunday digital and print ad sales teams with inevitable job losses in a move that ups the daily’s ad director John Teal to a group-wide role, MediaWeek says. Mail Online GM James Bromley is also becoming MD for the site, replacing outgoing Global Radio-bound Stephen Miron. The report rumours up to 60 percent of sales staff could go in the amalgamation. Guy Zitter, who was last week promoted to group-wide MD of both titles and online: “The primary motivation behind this is maximisation of revenue and not cost savings … it is easier for one sales team to defend itself than two.”
The same is happening at News International, which is merging digital sales teams from each of its websites much as it did for print equivalents this summer. Digital sales head Martin Corke gets upped to head of digital advertising strategy, newcomer Alex Hole becomes digital trading director and Times’ digital ad manager Hamish White will deputise Hole – but the contraction to between 50 and 60 people will make 10 staff redundant, MediaWeek says. The unified team will sell ads across Sun Online, Times Online and NOTW.co.uk. James Murdoch this summer decided to install a single corporate team across the top of all NewsInt operations following a Boston Consulting Group review of the business’ finances.
Also changing – magazine publisher IPC has upgraded its corporate biz dev team to be IPC Unite, which will coordinate ads and sponsorships across print and web, including Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) brethren AOL, Time and Turner. Meanwhile, freesheet Metro, operated by DMGT’s A&N Newspapers, is to make regional staff redundant, reports say.