[thistleclub]

Postmedia looking at more outsourcing as revenue from newspapers falls in Q2
(The Canadian Press, Linda Nguyen, Apr 11 2013)

Postmedia Network Canada Corp. says it’s continuing to look at making more cuts across its operations, including centralizing its manufacturing, marketing and circulation departments.

“As we look into our crystal ball, we will be a smaller revenue company but as well, a much smaller expense or costs company,” Paul Godfrey, Postmedia’s president and chief executive told investors Thursday.

“By doing that, we have to look at every aspect we do business, including the potential for outsourcing.”
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The company is in the midst of a three-year program to transform its business and cut ongoing costs.

During the three months ended Feb. 28, it implemented changes to create $16 million in annualized savings, bringing the total since the program was announced in July to $58 million.

But Godfrey said the savings were not enough, and the company will continue to explore other ways to get costs down.

“I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that we don’t look at various aspects of our company. Look, we have a business to run on a day-by-day basis. It’s not like dropping a guillotine, you just drop it and everything continues,” he said.

“What you have look at is the practicality of when to do it. That’s why we were realistic when we talked about a three-year program. We started not too many months ago.”

It expects to be able to get revenue once it rolls out paywalls at all of its newspaper websites beginning in May. Currently, only a handful of its newspapers’ websites require a paid subscription.

“You cannot give away your content which costs you millions and millions of dollars and give it away free,” said Godfrey.


A paywall-plus-outsourcing strategy was recently announced by Spectator/Metroland parent company Torstar in March following a similarly steep plunge in ad revenue.