Failure to hit subscription targets has been blamed for planned editorial redundancies at The Scotsman.
National Union of Journalist members at the publisher have passed a motion of “anger and dismay” and said they’re seeking an “urgent meeting” with editor Neil McIntosh.
The union stated that that one in four journalists have been placed at risk of redundancy across specialist reporters, business and features, with 5 jobs set to go.
The NUJ chapel at the National World title is calling for talks with McIntosh, because reporters were told “only three weeks ago” that they had achieve year-on-year growth.
“Our members at The Scotsman shouldn’t have to pay the price for the muddled mess of a business strategy from National World. They have achieved what they have been asked to do, and their editor has congratulated them for it,” stated Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ National Organiser for Scotland.
“National World management claim they are trying to turn the company into a ‘premium content business’, but these job cuts fall on those same talented, award-winning journalists who consistently produce excellent Scottish journalism.
“National World CEO David Montgomery needs to be supporting the editor of The Scotsman and its journalists so they can continue to produce quality, informed journalism. You don’t attract more subscribers by offering them less content.”
The union is pointing blame at “National World’s senior executives based in England” who they claim have made the decision after a “a failure to hit targets for subscriptions.” That target was to double traffic on scotsman.com by the end of the year. In their half yearly results, National World said their website and apps had seen an 8% increase in traffic, with The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post, News Letter, Express and Star and Shropshire Star growing their subscriber base by 17% since December 2023.
In yesterday’s interim results, National World reported a 17% growth in group revenue and 12% growth in digital revenue. Its profits had increase to £5m.
Its digital revenue increased by 12% in the period, despite “continued volatility in audience,” with average monthly page views of 136m in the first half, a year-on-year decline of 4%, with -8% in Q1 improving to +1% in Q2.
Commenting on the results, Executive Chairman, David Montgomery, said:
“The enhanced performance and significantly increased profits are the result of expert integration of acquired businesses and also an energetic restructure of the operating model based around original, monetisable content, re-skilling of the talent base and greater engagement with registered customers.
“We are investing in both automated processes combined with the development of a social media platform that deepens the relationship with communities and interest groups to win back key marketplaces.
“At the same time our expert and specialist content, in areas such as business and sport, is exploiting a national footprint that in future will be better represented by the Group to promote data and sales.
“National World is also alive to the attractiveness of consolidation, extracting immediate significant synergies and equipping acquired businesses with the innovative tools to grow exponentially.”
The group stated that its future plans were “to build a sustainable and monetisable content business, embracing its news provision tradition but with a wider agenda across all platforms. This pivoting of the business has continued unabated despite the economic headwinds in the first half.”
