News Corp. will announce its decision tomorrow on whether to split publishing and entertainment into two companies according to The Australian. The Wall Street Journal also has more on this.
Paul Barry has written ann interesting piece on the potential split for The Power Index. Barry speculates on whether Australian management knew of the plans to split the business:
So did Williams know this split was coming? It seems not. The word in Holt Street is he was summoned to New York over the weekend by Rupert. And the hacks are speculating that he was called there to be given the news.
We’d love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation. How disappointed would Williams be, having crafted his big restructure, to be told he’ll have to go back to the drawing board.
On the other hand, if Williams knew this was in the wind, it might explain why he was so reluctant to put a number on the jobs that could go when News Ltd, like Fairfax, moves to an 18 hour-a-day newsroom, digital-first newsroom.
But either way, those numbers are likely to look a lot larger than they did a week ago.
This matters to newsagents because of Williams’ involvement in changes to distribution arrangements for newspapers.
The turmoil is a timely reminder to newsagents to build businesses which do not rely on a single supplier for a significant portion of your revenue base.
How amusing that The Australian web site has a link to a PDF of the Fairfax newsroom restructure!!??