Regional publishers to cut up to 300 jobs

Up to 300 jobs are likely to be cut at local weekly paper owner MEN Media and regional newspaper publisher Observer Standard Media Group.

Around 150 jobs are under threat at the Observer Standard Media Group, which currently has the administrators in, after it announced that it is looking for a buyer for nine of its West Midlands titles.

Manchester Evening News owner MEN Media is also set to cut 150 jobs, including 78 editorial staff, and close eight offices around the Manchester area.

A spokesman from Grant Thornton, the administrators at the Observer Standard Media Group, said; “The company has been suffering from the decline in advertising in the region, particularly with regard to residential property advertising, and it was making losses prior to the cost-cutting measures taken by the directors before our appointment.”

The group has an annual turnover of around £9 million a year and employs 150 staff, which are based at its Redditch head office and nine other sites in the south Midlands.

The administrators said they “are not making any immediate redundancies but everything is being kept under review”.

The Observer Standard Media Group is one of the country’s largest freesheet distributors – it prints more than 500,000 local papers a week across the Midlands area and claims a readership of 765,000.

Meanwhile, MEN Media is set to cut 150 staff from its 700-strong workforce but will not be closing any of its titles, which include the Rochdale Observer and the Stockport Express.

However, production of all weekly titles will be moved to MEN’s offices in Manchester, which will see a number of the publisher’s regional offices close, including Ashton, Macclesfield and Rochdale.

The Stockport office will remain open but no editorial staff will be based there, according to reports.

Yesterday, Northcliffe Media also announced plans to slash 95 jobs and close or merge a number of its weekly papers across Essex, Kent and Surrey in a bid to centralise regional production (see Northcliffe Media to slash 95 jobs).

The publisher said it has been forced to restructure its regional output to “reduce costs in the current challenging trading environment”.

Northcliffe also confirmed that 14 of its free newspapers will close, including Total Essex and Focus in West Kent – free titles in Maidstone and Ashford have also been put under review.

The publisher has been forced to make similar cuts and operational changes in the east Midlands and the north of England.

Last month, Trinity Mirror confirmed that it has made 1,200 people redundant and closed 27 newspaper titles since the start of last year (see Trinity Mirror cuts 1,200 jobs in 14 months).

Regional newspaper group Johnston Press has failed to escape the economic downturn as well and was forced to cut 1,000 staff last year – bringing it down to just over 7,000 staff in total.

Last month’s regional ABC figures highlight the deteriorating newspaper market –