Nine to axe 200 jobs due to Meta deal expiry and tough ad market

Nine Entertainment chief executive Mike Sneesby has announced a wave of job cuts at the company, joining competitors News Corp and Seven West Media in reducing costs amid an advertising rout and Meta’s decision to dispense with news deals.

In an email to staff on Friday, Sneesby said leadership had made progress transforming the business, but that the company is “not immune” to the economic headwinds afflicting media companies globally.

“Unfortunately, this will result in some of our colleagues leaving us in the coming months. It is not something we want to do but it is something we need to do to continue to build on a successful platform of high-quality journalism and digital subscription growth,” Sneesby said in the email, seen by Capital Brief.

Sneesby revealed plans to cut 200 positions from the company’s national headcount of about 5,000. Of these, between 70 and 90 jobs will be eliminated from the publishing division, which includes The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Australian Financial Review.

Nine’s managing director of publishing Tory Maguire wrote in a Slack message to staff that the company had fared better than other news publishers around the world but that it would be focused on “finding efficiencies” where possible, at a cost of up to 90 jobs.