Nine publishing to make dozens of roles redundant
Nine’s broadcasting division, which includes this imprint, will make dozens of roles redundant as part of a restructuring aimed at focusing more on digital news amid a tough advertising market and rapid technological disruption in the media industry.
Around 30 voluntary redundancies will initially be offered to staff. Sydney Morning Herald And Age Staff in the department’s print operations team and free news website nine.com.au are also facing cuts as the department pushes for more digital subscribers.
Tory Maguire, managing director of the publishing division, informed staff of the upcoming changes in an email and town hall meeting on Tuesday morning, saying the business must adapt to the changing media landscape to protect its journalism. This includes investing in new areas to connect with new audiences, he said.
“We need to continue to move forward, especially towards a digital-first future,” Maguire said, but added that print revenue was better than previously expected.
Maguire said the company would cooperate with the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, a union that represents journalists.
Nine signed a major deal with Microsoft earlier this month; This means the tech giant’s AI chatbot Copilot will reference content from the company’s mastheads in search results and compensate the media company in return. A briefing from investment bank UBS this month said the revenue impact of the Microsoft deal would not have a major impact on the company’s profitability, with its value suggested to be less than $25 million, but legislation to bring tech giants to the bargaining table earlier than expected was “positive for potential future deals”.
News organizations around the world are adapting to the rapid adoption of AI chatbots as a means of consuming information. For example, Google has introduced AI Overview functionality at the top of search results over the last two years, which has led to a decline in click traffic to both news websites and all other web domains.
Media union representative Cassie Derrick said the cuts were devastating and called on Nine to provide more information about the outages to the MEAA.
“The nine need to engage in genuine consultation with employees through their unions and do everything possible to prevent compulsory redundancies, including redeployment and voluntary options,” Derrick said. “Newsrooms cannot continue to absorb layoffs without negative consequences for their workloads, diversity, quality journalism and journalists’ ability to be held accountable.”
Australian Financial Review will not be affected by the outages.
Broadcasting was Nine’s second best-performing division in its 2025 full-year results, with revenue of $526 million and earnings of $153 million excluding the overall blackout window. The company’s annual report last year noted that declines in print sales were offset by subscriber growth.
Forecasts show the division’s earnings are expected to remain flat through 2026 results, which are due in August.
The company charged $33 million in costs from the division in fiscal 2025. Nine has since sold its stake in digital real estate company Domain and its talkback radio division for $1.4 billion. It also acquired outdoor media company QMS for $850 million.
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Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect with: X or email.
