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According to a couple of independent newsroom sources, Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton called meetings on Wednesday to inform affected people that the design, news operations and web operations staffs would be combined into one department, along with at least some of the copy editors. The merging would take place by the end of January and lead to 10-20 layoffs, the sources say. One of the sources said there's also new talk of combining sections to save money.

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE:GCI) reported its results for the third quarter. Gannett is an international news and information company operating mainly in the realms of publishing, digital and broadcasting. Results: Net income for the publisher fell to $99.8 million (41 cents per share) vs. $101.4 million (42 cents per share) a year earlier. This is a decline of 1.6% from the year earlier quarter. Revenue: Fell 3.5% to $1.27 billion from the year earlier quarter. Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: GCI reported adjusted net income of 44 cents per share. By that measure, the company fell...

The Palm Beach Post, privately held by an Atlanta family with three members on the Forbes 400 richest Americans, is laying off “more than 20″ employees today, according to a memo exclusively obtained by Gossip Extra. The Palm Beach Post In an email sent an hour ago to the entire company in West Palm Beach, Publisher Tim Burke made it clear more layoffs could come soon as the newspaper’s umbrella company, Cox Newspapers, continues to contract during the economic downturn. Today’s unexpected cuts from a staff that’s already stretched thin include four newsroom workers, including two who work mainly for...

When he announced a recent 5 percent pay cut for staff and change in severance payments, St. Petersburg Times chairman and CEO Paul Tash said the cost-cutting “will likely include further job reductions,” and now it has. In a memo to staff, executive editor Neil Brown acknowledged that layoffs at the Poynter-owned paper had started. “The economy affords us no guarantees,” Brown wrote, “but we hope to wrap up these staffing decisions by the middle of October.” We’ve been told about eight people who were laid off, but have confirmed only three. The full memo follows. From Neil Brown to...

Ed Padgett knows a thing or two about printing newspapers. For the last 39 years, he has been working as a pressman at the Los Angeles Times. In the near future, he could be out of a job. "[The management is] expecting a really bad fourth quarter. The senior vice president told us we’ve got three years more of printing the hard copy Times before they shut it down. Our plant manager says five years," he told The Frying Pan. A LAT spokeswoman said that there were no plans to cease publication of the print product, but you would not...

The combined newsstand sales of 68 major American magazines declined by nearly half from 2001-2011, a MediaPost analysis of Audit Bureau of Circulations data revealed. According to ABC FAS-FAX circulation reports, this group of leading weekly and monthly magazines saw total average newsstand sales plunge from 22,019,953 in the six-month period ending June 2001 to 11,562,028 in the six-month period ending June 2011 -- a 47.5% decline over the course of the decade. Total newsstand sales have gradually collapsed over the last 10 years, accelerating in recent years in response to broader economic pressures. Newsstand sales have declined steadily, dropping...

Pay for full-time employees at the St. Petersburg Times will be cut by five percent until January 2012 under a new cost-savings plan implemented by the newspaper starting Monday. Staffers will be given five additional days off, with pay, during the five-month period, distinguishing this move from compulsory furloughs used by some other media outlets. The change will save about $1-million over the next five months in payroll costs. The company also will reduce its maximum severance payment from 40 weeks to 26 weeks, starting Oct. 1. The newspaper’s cost-saving plan will also likely include further job reductions, though officials...

The Dallas Morning News laid off a reported 38 employees on Tuesday as the paper's parent company, A.H. Belo Corp., contends with a continued decline in advertising revenues at its newspapers. The layoffs ran the spectrum of jobs at the Morning News, including editors, reporters, photographers and designers. James M. Moroney III, executive vice president of A. H. Belo Corp. and publisher and CEO of the Morning News, said in an email that the company is battling a revenue problem that plagues the entire newspaper industry. In his email, Moroney did not confirm how many employees were let go. "No...

Newspaper companies are resetting their advertising expectations after a discouraging first half of the year, a shift that could spur a return to more of the job cuts and other belt-tightening moves that spread through the industry in 2008 and 2009. A spate of publishers in recent weeks reported that newspaper advertising revenue in the second quarter declined at rates in the mid- to high-single digits because of persistent weakness in print, and executives said they expect similar trends in the third quarter. "Right now, I'd have a hard time presenting a plan with revenues flattening out," one newspaper executive...

Cincinnati Enquirer parent Gannett Co. Inc. has signed a letter of intent under which the Columbus Dispatch will print a much smaller version of the newspaper. The move, if finalized, will result in the closure of the company's local printing operations by the fourth quarter of 2012. In a statement, the company said the new format would be 10 1/2 inches by 14 1/2 inches. The paper is now 11 inches by 22 1/2 inches. "We are committed to serving the greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky communities – and providing consumers with the best news and information anywhere, anytime. We...

A Times pressroom is being further downsized “in response to the decline in revenue and page counts.” Ten union pressroom employees will be laid off at the end of August. The LAT pressroom has been hit hard by layoffs in the past. Last year the paper closed their Orange County printing facility as a cost-cutting measure. There are currently about 127 pressroom employees at the one remaining printing facility The full email from management is included after the jump. The email below was found at the union blog Save Our Trade. Ronnie Pineda GCC-IBT Local #140N As we have previously...

Management at The Baltimore Sun gave a buyout proposal to the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Wednesday, looking to cut from 20 to 25 positions. “The company has initiated bargaining today with the guild over the terms of a voluntary buyout offer,” Renee Mutchnik, director of marketing for The Baltimore Sun, said in a statement. Mutchnik wrote in an emailed response to questions that this is the first voluntary buyout offer since 2008. The Newspaper Guild will be meeting with management Thursday afternoon to discuss the proposal, said Andrea K. Walker, a business reporter and newsroom chair for The Sun’s guild unit....

The Chicago Tribune Media Group announced Tuesday it has reached an agreement to print the Chicago Sun-Times and seven of parent Sun-Times Media’s suburban newspapers. Printing will be moved from the Sun-Times plant on Ashland Avenue to the Tribune's Freedom Center, with work phased in during the fall. The Tribune has distributed Sun-Times products since 2007. "They are our No. 1 client, they are our largest client," said Becky Brubaker, senior vice president of manufacturing and distribution for Chicago Tribune Media Group. "It was an opportunity for both of us to expand services." The Tribune did not disclose the terms...

Gannett Co.'s second-quarter earnings fell 22% as advertising and circulation revenue continued sliding, though the company posted strong digital sales. The media company saw its bottom line rise for most of last year, aided by cost cuts and revenue growth at its broadcast and digital operations. But the trend ended last quarter, as earnings fell on persistent declines in print advertising and circulation. Advertising revenue fell 7% while circulation revenue dropped 2%. The broadcasting segment saw a 0.2% revenue increase while the digital business posted a 13% gain. Overall, revenue declined 2.2% to $1.33 billion. Gannett reported a profit of...

Through most of 2010, newspaper companies talked of “sequential improvement” in their revenues. That was a euphemism for advertising losses, which continued but were getting gradually less severe. Then in the first months of 2011, the losses began accelerating again. Advertising, down 4.7 percent year-to-year in the fourth quarter of 2010, fell 7 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Results for the second quarter are still being computed, but they are bad enough to prompt mass layoffs at Gannett two weeks ago and a move last week that consolidated editing of all...

The Guardian will make job cuts over the next two years in a bid to save £25m by 2016 and continue its move towards a ‘digital first’ news strategy. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger has said that a ‘significant’ number of jobs will be shed across the group which currently employs around 1,500 members of staff, including 630 journalists. Talking to BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, Rusbridger admitted to cut its staff numbers over the next two years while the company also aims to boost its digital revenue to £91m by 2016. Andrew Miller, chief executive for the Guardian...

The 700 layoffs Gannett announced at its community newspapers Tuesday can rightly be read as a vote of no confidence in the future of print by America’s largest newspaper company. Given the company’s long history of playing to Wall Street, it is no big surprise, though. Gannett probably would say it is just being realistic in recognizing that these 81 newspapers have permanently become much smaller businesses. The market liked the hard-headed cost control move, with Gannett shares up about 4 percent from late Monday to Tuesday’s closing bell. Here is my take on the factors that went into the...

The Charlotte Observer will lay off 26 employees in an effort to battle continued revenue declines, publisher Ann Caulkins announced today. Company officials were notifying those workers, including four in the newsroom, this morning. In some departments, employees were given the option to volunteer for a buyout. More than half of the cuts will come from operations; Caulkins said the Observer is transferring its pre-run printing to a sister paper in Columbia, S.C. The company is also freezing 25 vacant positions, she said. Caulkins said the paper continues to experience year-over-year revenue declines. Local advertising has improved, but national accounts...

DAVID CAMERON, the British PM, was in Brussels meeting the press last October when he took a few moments to make fun of the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Good to see that costs are being controlled everywhere,” Mr. Cameron said as he directed a mocking glance at three BBC correspondents, each from a different BBC program, covering his news conference. “We’re all in this together,” Mr. Cameron said sarcastically, reciting his government’s favorite austerity slogan, and then added, “including, deliciously, the BBC.” Why would the British premier celebrate the financial woes of the BBC? The corporation is the biggest, oldest and...

Key Findings Audience People are spending more time with news than ever before, according to Pew Research Center survey data, but when it comes to the platform of choice, the web is gaining ground rapidly while other sectors are losing. In 2010, digital was the only media sector seeing audience growth. And cable news joined the ranks of older media suffering audience decline. Source: Nielsen Media Research, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, Audit Bureau of Circulations. 1 Digital: In December 2010, 41% of Americans cited the internet as the place where they got “most of their...