Dow Jones Plans WSJ Review
October 19 2016 - 4:00PM
Dow Jones News
Dow Jones & Co. on Wednesday announced a broad review of
operations at The Wall Street Journal, driven by a significant
decline in print advertising.
Dow Jones Chief Executive William Lewis said the review, dubbed
WSJ2020, will seek to come up with an action plan for the next
three years and identify the best ways to rebalance revenue streams
as the news industry continues to undergo a tumultuous shift toward
digital and mobile, in particular.
"These are challenging times. I thank you in advance for your
patience and understanding as we set about the difficult task of
continuing to build our digital future while responding to the
decline in traditional advertising," Mr. Lewis said in a memo to
staff.
The review could include a reduction of head count, according to
people familiar with the matter.
The announcement comes a day after executives from Dow Jones, a
unit of News Corp, informed representatives from the union that
represents a large portion of the company's staff that it is
preparing to restructure operations amid volatility in the ad
market.
Mr. Lewis said in the note Wednesday that the review would focus
on three key areas: the newsroom, advertising sales and areas where
the company can be more efficient. A full action plan is expected
to be shared with the Journal's staff in January, he said.
The transformation will be "underpinned by a series of cost
management initiatives," and include "rationalizing print with the
goal of reshaping the newspaper to be more concise and digestible,"
Mr. Lewis wrote. The advertising department will need to innovate
and include more creative ads and mobile products, while the chief
financial officer will be tasked with keeping a "tight grip on
costs."
Dow Jones has been exploring a range of options to reduce costs,
including possibly combining or eliminating sections within the
Journal, cutting the number of newspaper pages and closing or
reducing noncore projects, the people said.
A spokeswoman for Dow Jones declined to comment.
The volatility isn't unique to the Journal. The New York Times
earlier this year announced a similar review, called the 2020
Report, to chart a path forward as readers move online and
increasingly onto mobile platforms. The paper has said it is
planning a downsizing of staff and the shifting of resources within
the newsroom to more digital roles by early next year.
Mr. Lewis said the review at Dow Jones comes as the shift of
readers and advertisers to digital has accelerated, with the paper
crossing the one million digital subscriber mark for the first
time.
He said digital subscribers were expected to outnumber the
Journal's print subscribers at some point in the current fiscal
year, which ends June 30. The memo also noted that circulation
revenue overtook advertising revenue in the past fiscal year.
Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 19, 2016 15:45 ET (19:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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