Clerical and back-office staff at Independent Newspapers in Middle Abbey have until May 21st to accept a redundancy package from the newspaper.
The company is determined to outsource every part of its operation, apart from two areas it regards as "core" - editorial and printing.
The scale of the outsourcing is ambitious, particularly for the newspaper industry. In future, Independent journalists phoning in copy will be handled by a Press Association call centre outside London.
Small ads placed by the public will be handled by a company in Co Armagh. Even mail will be sorted and distributed in Middle Abbey Street by an outsourced security company.
Declan Carlyle, head of human resources at Independent News & Media (IN&M), the parent of Independent Newspapers, said heads of department at Middle Abbey Street met last March to decide which part of their business was core.
Editorial and printing at City West fell into this category, he said.
He also said these sections had been restructured in recent times and efficiencies achieved.
He said the company simply no longer needed to run its own back-office and clerical operations and they could be provided by outside companies.
The company outsourced most of its distribution and delivery services back in 1990, he said.
In the latest review, telesales or small ads will be handled by Answer Call Direct which operates a 24-hour, seven-day a week call centre in Armagh. In future, members of the public phoning in their small ads will be channelled through to this centre.
Independent hopes to cease all telesales activity, a section which currently employs about 50 people, by May 28th.
The company's advertising sales team, which handles larger advertising business and deals with agencies and clients, will not be outsourced. This section employs about 30 people.
The following financial functions are also due to be outsourced: pay roll; credit control; management accounts; circulation; and invoicing.
About 50 people work in this area and the company is hoping SWS Finance, based in Clonakilty, Co Cork, will take over this responsibility from May 28th.
Copy taking, which employs about six people, will become the responsibility of the Press Association in Britain.
A security company called Carlisle Security will provide all security and mail functions. Electrical and engineering works will eventually be done by a company called Mercury Engineering.
Meanwhile, a company called White Space Limited will be responsible for special reports and advert-led supplements.
Mr Carlyle said the company was determined to get its cost base down and handing over all non-core functions to outside providers made financial sense.
He said under service agreements many of these outsourced companies were paid "per transaction".
If 10,000 invoices were mailed out, IN&M would pay for 10,000 invoices, he explained.
Neil Clifford, media analysis with Goodbody Stockbrokers, said IN&M was tackling a high cost base compared to its operations elsewhere.
"They have just come through what was a difficult period for all media companies and this probably helped to highlight the inflexibilities of the cost base in Ireland. The restructuring is aimed at addressing this," he said.
"Newsprint and staff costs are the two most significant costs for any newspaper company. As newsprint costs can't really be controlled, the only way of achieving significant and sustainable cost reductions is to cut head count," he said.
He said media companies were preparing for an advertising recovery and reducing their costs ahead of this.
The Independent move, which will lead to about 205 redundancies, is being resisted strongly by the unions. The unions say only voluntary redundancies are acceptable.
SIPTU's Dublin administrative branch secretary, Ethel Buckley, said the company previously agreed at two Labour Court hearings that there would be no forced redundancies.
"Now less than four weeks after accepting the court's recommendation, giving a written guarantee of job security, and undertaking to negotiate on the voluntary severance arrangements, management has announced that it has unilaterally decided to sack our members at the end of May," she said.
The Independent's chief executive, Vincent Crowley, replied to this: "The voluntary severance package has been on offer since August 2003.
"In light of the disappointing uptake of the very generous €23 million package available, the board has been forced to revisit its policy of voluntarism."
RTE business sponsor
RTÉ Radio One has announced that DHL is to sponsor a new radio programme called The Business, due to air every Saturday between 11.30a.m. and noon.
DHL's sponsorship of the programme will begin on Saturday, May 8th and will run for 10 weeks.
The Business will be a weekly look at business and personal finance with journalists John Murray and Robert Shortt.
Q102 and Newstalk
MCM Communications, the media arm of McConnells, has taken a closer look at the latest JNLR figures and concluded that the big winners are Dublin stations Q102 and NewsTalk 106.
The agency compared listenership figures between October 2003 and March 2004 and April 2003 and September 2004.
Its analyst Paul McCabe noted the success of UTV-owned Q102.
"The big success story in Dublin is the resurrection of Q102, formerly Lite FM.
"The station has managed to claw back 42,000 listeners. This growth is clearly at the expense of 98FM - and is most pronounced among housekeepers with children and 35 to 44 year-olds."
As for NewsTalk, Mr McCabe acknowledged the good news for the station, but insisted RTÉ Radio One was not necessarily the big loser in all this.
"Newstalk is still continuing to recruit and now commands a 5 per cent listenership, representing 43,000 weekday listeners - an increase of 4,000. To put this performance in context, RTÉ Radio One lost 22,000 listeners in Dublin over the same period.
"Rather than switching to Newstalk in their droves, they are leaving Radio 1 and tuning into Q102/Lite FM," he claimed.
