Times-Union to offer voluntary buyouts - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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The buyouts, which would pay employees who voluntarily is just one of the changes beingh considered by the parent company of the Jacksonvillredaily newspaper, Company LLC, said Publisher Jim “We’re literally looking at everything,” Currowq said. “ There’s nothing that’d not on the table.” Like many large metropolitan dail newspaper companies around the revenue at the Morries Communications has been on a downwars slide forsome time. The company’s net incomse was down 59 percentto $2 million in the quarterr ending June 30 from $4.9 million during the same perioc last year, according to a quarterly reporg filed with the SEC.
“Times are tough rightg now,” Currow said, adding that the dropping real estatre market and increasing unemployment fueledthe company’s own financiap issues. But the bottom line for Morri s Communications, as at other newspapers, is that the effectz of the economic downturn have take a toll on advertising Morris Communications’ Florida newspapers and publications, which accountexd for 35.6 percent of its total advertising contributed 64.1 percent of its entire net declinre in advertising revenue in the firsft half of 2008. In the past year the Augusta, Ga.
-based company has started contracting out much ofthe Times-Union’s advertising lay out to a compant in Manila, and is now starting to do the same for some of the advertisinv at its Savannah and Augustaa newspapers. And two months ago, Morris Communications joined a growing number of large dailies by outsourcing its fleeyt of delivery trucks to Althoughhe didn’t know exactlu how many, Currow said Penske hired many of Morriz Communications’ drivers. Some employees have been laid off. In the firstf half of 2008, Jacksonville eliminatee 124 employees, with a total annualk salary and wage savings ofabout $2.5 million.
Severancs costs totaled $600,000 duringb the same period, most of which came from outsourcing ad productionn and a transfer of some othe departments to shared servicesin Augusta. The compan y is looking at other avenues to save Currow said, including finding smallere spaces to house the Nassau Count y and Clay County bureaus of the Times-Union.