Staff Cuts Made To Boost Financial Times Fortunes

Reports this morning suggest that at least 20 journalists will leave the Financial Times following a voluntary redundancy programme designed to cut costs and boost performance at the troubled newspaper.

The redundancies follow a wide-ranging cost-cutting programme, designed to save around £7 million, which saw the paper’s respected Creative Business supplement being closed last year. The newspaper blamed the closure on a failure by the 16-page supplement to bring in adequate advertising revenue (see FT Pulls The Plug On Creative Business).

However, the newspaper’s publisher, Pearson, issued a positive trading update last month, ahead of its 2004 preliminary results announcement, stating that the FT is on course to break even in the fourth quarter, bringing to an end to nearly three years of struggling with a return to the black (see Financial Times Set To Break Even For 2004).

According to a report in today’s Guardian, most of those now leaving their jobs with the FT have accepted early retirement. The departures are understood to include writers on the newspaper’s Saturday magazine, as well as the newspaper itself. Several senior editors and sub-editors are also believed to have agreed to the redundancy deal, as has Roger Beale, the FT’s award-winning cartoonist.

The FT has seen its circulation decline recently, losing 1.9% year on year in the six months to December. The paper’s total circulation now rests at 426,369.

Financial Times: 020 873 3000 www.ft.com

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