Are Wapping cuts to pay for Murdochs Wall Street Journal adventure?
18 June 2007 If you want to know what’s happening at Wapping, steer clear of News Corp’s annual report. Packed wit hglossy stills from the film and TV operations that generate two-thirds of its revenues, it is produced for an American audience. At best, US investors regard Rupert Murdoch’s continued dalliance with British newspapers as mildly eccentric. No doubt intentionally, Wapping’s financial performance receives only a cursory mention. Instead, Murdoch employees should head over to Companies House, where the accounts of Newscorp Investments are discreetly filed each year. These numbers disclose a lot more about what’s happening inside Murdoch’s UK empire. On the face of it, the announcement of 100 job cuts at Wapping looked nasty. As several reports mentioned, the losses amounted to seven per cent of News International’s 1,400-strong editorial workforce. Most bean-counters would regard this as fairly harsh medicine. But Les Hinton, who has run Murdoch’s British newspapers since 19
