Stuff staff asked to accept 15% pay cut for 12 weeks after huge drop in advertising

Thursday, 16 April 2020

Stuff staff have been asked to accept a cut in pay for 12 weeks as advertising revenues sag.

Stuff staff earning more than $50,000 a year have been asked to take a voluntary 15 per cent pay cut for 12 weeks.

The request mirrors one that rival media company NZME made to its 1200 remaining employees earlier this week.

Senior executives at Stuff have been asked to take a 25 per cent pay cut for the period and chief executive Sinead Boucher has agreed to a 40 per cent cut.

'We have not made this decision lightly but our focus must be on the sustainability of the business in the long term,' Boucher said.

'This request follows other cost-saving measures already taken, including reducing costs across the board, applying for the government wage subsidy and asking staff to take entitled leave where possible,' she said.

* Media company NZME cuts workforce by 15%

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher says the company wants to preserve journalism 'at scale'.

* MediaWorks asks staff to take 15% pay**

NZME announced on Tuesday that it had cut 200 jobs, which is 15 per cent of its workforce, and asked staff earning more than $50,000 a year to take a 15 per cent pay cut, also for 12 weeks.

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs agreed to a 20 per cent pay cut.

Boucher told Parliament's Epidemic Response select committee on Wednesday that she would not rule out job losses, but said Stuff had not cut jobs so far as it was trying to preserve its ability to 'deliver journalism 'at scale' through this crisis'.

Stuff publishes the Stuff website and newspapers including The Sunday Star-Times, Waikato Times, The Press and The Dominion Post.

Stuff's advertising revenues had more than halved in the weeks since March, Boucher told the committee.

NZME managing editor Shayne Currie and MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson said their businesses had experienced similar declines in advertising.

MediaWorks staff working for its radio, television and digital businesses were asked to take a 15 per cent pay cut at the start of the month, while those working in its outdoor advertising business, formerly QMS New Zealand, were asked to take a 20 per cent cut.

Sources said senior executives across MediaWorks' business had been asked to accept a 20 per cent cut and chief executive Michael Anderson had agreed to a 25 per cent cut in his pay.

TVNZ spokeswoman Kirsty Way said it was not considering pay cuts at the moment, and the coronavirus outbreak had not resulted in redundancies at the state-owned broadcaster so far.

'TVNZ has exited most contractor and freelance roles, and cut incentive payments for all executive team members and most senior level business leaders,' she said.

RNZ, which is taxpayer-funded, was not considering redundancies or pay cuts, spokesman John Barr said.

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi said on Wednesday that he hoped to provide details of short-term assistance within the week that could help media businesses see through the next six to 12 months.

That would be ahead of a possible 'longer term' conversation on how to put the media on a more sustainable footing.

But he indicated the Government was not discussing bailing out individual media businesses.

Instead, he said the Government was considering bringing forward purchases of government advertisements to help media businesses cope with the short-term drop in cash flows they were experiencing.

He also hinted it might help broadcasters defer some costs that were associated with transmission and which were within the Government's control.

Sky Television said on Thursday that it would give away $1m-worth of TV advertising airtime to charities and community organisations that were aligned with covid-19 support efforts in New Zealand.