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February 4, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 2:11pm

£150m new presses for Telegraph but 90 staff axed

By Press Gazette

By Dominic Ponsford
Some 90 journalists are to go from the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs
as the paper has announced a £150 million repressing programme.
It means that, like the Guardian whose new presses come online
next year, the Telegraph titles will be available in full colour
meaning a substantial premium can be charged to advertisers.
In the coming months, the Telegraph intends to increase pagination by eight pages with an extra eight pages of colour as well.
Chief executive Murdoch MacLennan said: “We will invest in the new
production facilities to provide full colour newspapers to meet the
aspirations of both our readers and advertisers.
“The £150m investment programme will be funded in part by a major
re-shaping exercise across the entire organisation. This will see the
number of journalists in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph
reduced by about 90. Staff savings are already being implemented in
non-editorial departments.”
Telegraph management have described the redundancy terms on offer
as “generous” – they include four weeks pay for each year of
service up to a maximum of 52 weeks pay.
MacLennan said: “Journalists are the lifeblood of any newspaper
and maintaining the quality of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday
Telegraph for our readers is vital. However, action to improve our
production capability and secure our titles against the competition is
also vital. That is why the measures of the kind we anticipate have the
complete support of our editors.”
The Telegraph titles are the only the only British upmarket nationals to
return regular profits. Journalists on the papers are already said to
be “unhappy” and “disillusioned” with this year’s below inflation annual pay
rise of three per cent.
The current journalistic headcount on the Telegraphs is said to be 521.
The billionaire Barclay brothers paid £665 million for Telegraph
Group in June last year.
Last week former Daily Mail managing editor Lawrence Sear was appointed
to an editorial consultancy role at Telegraph Group bon a three-month contract.
At the Mail his job would have included handling editorial hiring and firing.
Staff
at the Telegraph titles have formal union recognition and are represented by the National Union of Journalists. Last year NUJ
members at the titles balloted for strike action because they were
unhappy at a three per cent pay offer.

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