BusinessAnalysis

Los Angeles Times layoffs mark brutal start to the media year

Planet Business: Kay Burley’s ministerial grillings, Netflix’s viewing stats and the Irish contestant on the next series of The Apprentice

Los Angeles Times journalists protesting after the newspaper signalled that it planned deep layoffs. Some 115 people were subsequently laid off this week. Photograph: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP

Laura Slattery's face
Laura Slattery
Sat Jan 27 2024 - 06:15

Image of the week: Cutting the future

It’s been a cold January for the Irish media. Irish Independent publisher Mediahuis Ireland was unable to rule out compulsory redundancies as it launched its second round of voluntary exits in less than a year. The Irish Times is currently accepting applications for departures. And RTÉ is also poised to launch what is set to be the first of several such schemes.

In the US, where weaker labour rights mean companies often just head straight for compulsory layoffs, the misery is even more acute, with job losses at music publication Pitchfork and the already gutted Sports Illustrated followed this week by the axing of 115 journalists at the Los Angeles Times – more than 20 per cent of its newsroom – and cuts at Axel Springer-owned Business Insider.

At the LA Times, its 404 “meme team” and staff working for Latino-focused brand De Los were among those to lose their jobs, as were reporters and editors at “legacy” departments such as business and politics – at least four Washington DC-based staff were let go. Luckily, there’s nothing much happening there at the moment. Oh, except the small matter of the possible re-election of Donald Trump to the White House. Insert everything-is-fine gif here.

The slash-and-burn came amid a “financial crisis” for the 142-year-old title, which is owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. He told an LA Times reporter – one he still employs – that the company was “not in turmoil” and it has “a real plan”.

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In numbers: Netflix and kill

30 million

Netflix views for the final series of The Crown, which the streamer gamely described as one of its “beloved and critically acclaimed titles” in its fourth-quarter update.

34.5 million

Views for Squid Game: The Challenge, the reality TV contest version of the streamer’s most-watched drama. The 10-part series featured 456 contestants competing for $4.56 million (€4.18 million), giving it both the largest cast and largest cash prize in reality TV history.

44 million

Views for “unscripted hit” Beckham, Netflix’s four-part series on the life and footballing career of David Beckham, featuring his immortal “be honest” plea to wife Victoria.

Getting to know: Maura Rath

Would you feel the wrath of Maura Rath should you get on her wrong side? Probably not, she’s a yogi. But we may soon find out, one way or the other, as the Wexford-based yoga company owner will be appearing on the new series of the BBC’s The Apprentice from next week. Rath, who is from Killenagh near Gorey, says she is looking to expand her business with the aid of Alan Sugar’s investment, which she believes she deserves because it promotes “positivity and wellbeing, in a profitable and scalable way, with five income streams”.

If only because the idea of Sugar getting into yoga is mildly amusing, let’s hope Rath lasts longer in “the process” than the two Irish contestants on the 2023 series, who were both prematurely ejected.

The list: Kay Burley’s greatest hits

Sky News’s Kay Burley is a veteran of relentless TV interview grillings, as many floundering Westminster politicians desperately trying to stick to their party lines have discovered. Here are five UK government ministers to have suffered a bruising at her hands.

1. Lucy Frazer: Pressed by Burley this week to offer some evidence of the “BBC bias” the Conservatives claim to exist, culture secretary Frazer struggled to get to the end of a sentence.

2. Huw Merriman. A day later, asked the same question, transport minister Merriman could only manage that he didn’t find BBC Radio 4 comedy programme News Quiz funny at all, although by the end of his time with Burley, he had admitted it might not have been the News Quiz he was thinking of.

3. Matt Hancock: Burley put it to Hancock, back when he was health secretary, that former Australian PM Tony Abbott – who was being lined up as a trade envoy – was a homophobe and a misogynist, only for Hancock to reply he was “also an expert in trade”.

4. Robert Jenrick: Now a backbencher, the holder of several different ministerial postings under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak has been grilled so efficiently by Burley on multiple occasions that he’s practically charcoal by now.

5. Michael Tomlinson: The immigration minister seemed flustered during an interview about the Rwanda Bill last week, but what he was roundly mocked for was flubbing Burley’s “soft” questions on his favourite box set and football team.

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