Hundreds more jobs are under threat in the media and publishingsectoras advertising revenues continue to slide.
The Daily Mail and General Trust announced it will cut 1,000 jobs in its regional arm, Northcliffe Media, which owns the Leicester Mercury, Hull Daily and the Bristol Evening Post.
The redundancies are more than double its initial prediction in November, the group said.
Peter Williams, the company’s finance director, could not confirm exactly howmany of the job cuts had already taken place or were under consultation, but said that some had already happened.
Display advertising in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, which is about 40% of turnover, was down 24% in January and February, the group said.
Regional publishers have been hit hard so far this year by falling advertising revenues. Local newspaper group Archant, which owns the Eastern Daily Press and Evening News, said this month it is planning to cut 34 jobs in Norfolk.
Elsewhere, upto a quarter of 276 editorial staff at the Glasgow-based Daily Record and Sunday Mail newspapers could go under plans to merge their newsrooms, while the Observer Standard Newspapers in Worcestershire went into administration earlier in March.
