Thursday 16th July: COVID costs Guardian £25m and forces job cuts

July 16, 2020

Morning all! Today's Wee Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

Sad to hear Guardian Media Group is to axe 180 jobs - 12% of its workforce - as the COVID-19 pandemic knocks £25m off its revenue forecasts for the next year. Of almost 1,500 staff, 70 editorial positions are going. The remaining 110 job losses will be across advertising, marketing and events.

Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner and chief executive Annette Thomas said in a statement to staff that costs savings from the furlough scheme, reducing use of casual staff and cutting marketing and travel spend were not enough. "... we face unsustainable annual losses in future years unless we take decisive action."

The news comes despite “good growth” in revenue from subscriptions and reader contributions offsetting declines in advertising and newsstand revenues made worse by the pandemic. And we're wondering how cutting editorial staff will impact Viner and Thomas's goal to increase focus on 'both impactful digital journalism and digital recurring reader revenues'.

In more grim news, The Drum is reporting that UK ad budgets have been slashed over the last three months to their lowest ever level. New data from the IPA reinforces the “catastrophic impact” the coronavirus crisis has had on marketing spend and highlights the most negative industry sentiment since Q4 2008.

In a move that's looking smarter by the minute, LGBT+ publisher Pink News is launching a membership scheme to help reduce its reliance on ad revenue. £50 a year gets members early-access emails, an “ad-light” experience, invites to webinars and video meetings and 10% off in the PinkNews shop.

Learn how to run a successful virtual event from a recent virtual event run by PPA Live. Esther sat in on the webinar with Hearst Live's Nikki Clare, Head of Events, and the New Scientist's Adrian Newton, Event Director, and has helpfully boiled the best bits down to eight key lessons. Get your learning on.

Throwback Thursday:

The new member scheme from Pink News reminded me we had Ellen Stewart on the podcast before she moved over to work at Vogue. She spoke about why Snapchat was a priority for Pink News and why video was a solid investment when it came to audience engagement.

Making a weekly podcast and a daily newsletter can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, but contributions (and comments) on our Ko-Fi crowdfunding page make it so much easier. Every single one makes us smile.