The Telegraph’s new owner, Axel Springer, is preparing to cut between 50 and 100 editorial jobs, months after saying it would invest in the title so it could become “the leading centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world”, according to the Guardian.
The German media company, led by chief executive Mathias Döpfner, is understood to be reviewing proposals that would make between 50 and 100 journalists redundant. A source familiar with the plans said a consultation expected to take place soon would probably propose removing a “significant proportion” of editorial staff, possibly before Christmas.
The same source said such proposals called into question Axel Springer’s promise to “back an investment programme in [the Telegraph Media Group] to grow and expand the business”. Telegraph Media Group declined to comment, and no redundancies have been announced to staff so far.
If confirmed, the cuts would be the first major intervention by Axel Springer since it bought the Telegraph for £575m earlier this year, a deal that closed three painful years for the paper and its employees, during which prospective owners were blocked, saw deals collapse or met strong internal resistance.
News of the proposals has left some at the Telegraph puzzled, as they find it hard to see how it fits with Döpfner’s promise to “bring that uncertainty to an end”. At a recent Axel Springer leadership summit in London, Döpfner is also said to have said the business could not cut its way to growth.
Axel Springer, which also owns Politico and the German titles Bild and Die Welt, recently hired consultants to assess the financial health of the Telegraph titles — the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph and its online news operation. Döpfner has made no secret of wanting to grow the Telegraph’s US operation, and senior editors have already been sent to the US to work on those plans.
The consultants are understood to have identified potential cuts to the existing news operation at the 171-year-old titles, and to have recommended that the Telegraph set up side ventures to support its journalism, including price comparison sites and healthcare. Some insiders were said to be baffled by elements of those suggestions.
A source familiar with the proposals said they would anger Telegraph staff, who had hoped Axel Springer’s ownership would bring “sunny uplands” after three years in which they were “starved of any form of investment, pay rises or management changes that could move us on”.
“The path to growth is not to cut jobs,” the source said. “They’re still going to need to hire people in the States if they’re going to make any sort of push there, but staff haven’t been told where that money is going to come from.”
The latest accounts for Telegraph Media Group show it slipped to a £4m loss last year, driven by legal fees linked to its ownership saga and the revaluing of assets. Revenue also fell slightly to £273.2m, the accounts showed. However, the accounts of Telegraph Media Group Holdings revealed an underlying pre-tax operating profit of about £48m.
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