Dallas Morning News Lays Off 43 as Company Struggles With Revenue Declines

As the newspaper industry struggles to stem declines in revenue, The Dallas Morning News on Monday laid off 43 employees in its newsroom and other parts of the company.The cuts include about 20 writers, editors and newsroom support personnel. The overall staff reduction represents about 4 percent of the 978 employees working for The News’ parent company, A. H. Belo Corporation. The layoffs are intended to position The News for long-term success, said president and publisher Grant Moise.Print revenue declines from advertising in recent months have been bigger than drops in circulation revenue, which has been falling mostly from home delivery and single copy newspaper sales. The company has focused on building its digital subscriptions.“After considerable thought and analysis, our management team has determined that our business in the future is largely supported by subscription revenue and the need for more aggressive investment in our digital products,” Moise said.The publicly traded company is due soon to report its fourth quarter financial results. Through the first nine months of the year, revenue declined 18.9 percent to $149.77 million from $184.55 million in the same period a year ago.The company’s loss widened to $5.58 million, or 26 cents a share, in the nine months ended Sept. 30 from a net loss of $2.66 million, or 13 cents a share, the prior year.  Continue reading...