And I Thought They Were Anti Austerity..

[Svejk]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/12152763/Guardian-braces-for-job-cuts-as-it-looks-to-slash-costs-by-20pc.html#disqus_thread

[Svejk]

Why don't they just put the price up?

[Old_Geezer]

Perhaps customer loyalty has been held in disregard by commercial concerns for so long that consumers have got the message and would switch to a rival if the price went up.

[douglas9401]

The only rival that Guardian readers could switch to is Loud, Smug and Pretentious Weekly which costs a fortune so I don't see that as a plan, savings wise.

[Svejk]

The Independent is 'finished' too. Is there a deeper meaning to all this.

[youngmafbog]

The only use I have ever found for a Guardian is wiping my back side once when we ran out of paper on site. A free one had been fortuitously put through the door!

When I was commuting to London they continually tried to give it away - and still no one took it.

[agchristie]

Bleak outlook, is there going to be a 'Guardian Angel'?

[ichkeria]

The Guardian Review section is one of the best pieces of hardcopy going.
I have to psych myself up several days in advance to tackle it :-)

The poor old Indy is stopping printing - that was inevitable I guess

[Togo]

//And I Thought They Were Anti Austerity..//

Only for themselves Svejk. Guess what though, they find it doesn't work. So they have to grasp economics now.

[Togo]

Of course the revenue 'earned' for flagging up hundreds of non job vacancies and quango positions has disappeared with Blair's patronage.

[douglas9401]

Cheers, Svejk. :-)

[jno]

the deeper meaning is about how to get people to pay for newspapers in a digital age. The Independent's going all-digital (not good news as its website is rubbish). The Mail's website is free and successful but rather different from the paper. The Murdoch websites went behind a paywall and lost 90% of the readers they'd had (but figure that 10 paying readers are better than 100 who don't pay). The Financial Times is subscription-only and is booming because rich people will pay to find out how to become richer. The Guardian has kept its website free and consequently has the sort of global reach the Times used to have; it's supposedly doing quite well but obviously doesn't think this will last for ever. (I don't either.)

[Svejk]

Now, if we could just get rid of the BBC (or rather, change the ridiculous way it's funded)

[Gromit]

All print media is suffering because many of their readers now have digital reading habits.

The Governments austerity, which most economists oppose, is entirely different from a newspaper making less revenue, and having to live within its means.

The deficit was largely incurred by the country having to loan money to save banks that were "too big to be allowed to fail". The Government's response is to cut spending on services for the elderly and poor.

The Guardian is just like any other private business. If it is not making any money, it is not going to survive.

The Daily and Sunday Telegraph are also about to be sold. And James Murdoch is back running ruperts empire on a daily basis, so expect similar job culls at the Times and Sun.