Cower of London: Times Slashes 20 Editorial Positions

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shrinking circulation and vanishing ad revenues apparently are a problem across the pond, too, as the News Corp.-owned Times of London announced 20 editorial staffers are being pink-slipped, according to a story in The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk).

Citing the scheduled end-of-the-month break-up by News Corp. of its newspaper, book publishing, television and film entities into two separate companies, acting Times Editor John Witherow warned that News International, publisher of the Times and Sunday Times, no longer can rely on receiving subsidies from better-performing media outlets, such as the tabloid Sun with its daily page 3 pinup of topless young women, according to The Guardian article. 

The layoffs will reduce the Times editorial staff by just under 10 percent. Witherow dismissed talk of any merger of the editorial staffs of the Times and Sunday Times. Times' newspapers sustained total losses of 28.7 million pounds ($44,760,993) for the fiscal year ending July 1, 2012, compared to a year earlier, when red ink added up to 11.8 million pounds ($18,408,120).

Roughly a hundred editorial positions were eliminated in 2011 by the Times and Sunday Times combined.