Rumours and Whingers and Occasional Optimism XXIX

[Suitman]

Company is struggling ... there is no money in the news anymore

Hope you're not one of them mate.

It'll be a sad day when you can't buy a printed newspaper at your local agent, servo, Woolies........whatever.

I still far prefer to sit down with a coffee somewhere and read a paper than sit down and read a screen.

Suity

 

[Kornstar]

Company is struggling ... there is no money in the news anymore

Would be good if they didn't make up lies too.

Plus they get paid way too much money!

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Would be good if they didn't make up lies too.

Plus they get paid way too much money!

Yeh, well the sports journo's are probably not the guys they're going to fire.

But in the long run, the weaker Fairfax is the worse News Corp's journos will be.

Tough business to make money in these days....and that encourages the 'clickbait' type headings.

 

[strider]

Hope you're not one of them mate.

It'll be a sad day when you can't buy a printed newspaper at your local agent, servo, Woolies........whatever.

I still far prefer to sit down with a coffee somewhere and read a paper than sit down and read a screen.

Suity

Im not a journo ... safe for now ... but who knows what they will cut down the track? ... its not that good a place to work anymore anyway :lol:

The sydney head office is at pyrmont .. a building with 5 floors. Fairfax used to have the entire building. It now only occupies 2 floors. Google have taken the rest. Tho the only part of fairfax that makes good money, Domain (property), have moved to another office.

Its a shame. I know there are people there who genuinely want to do a good job of reporting the facts ... but you have to compromise a bit to try and stay alive ... one day we might be stuck with only news limited

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Im not a journo ... safe for now ... but who knows what they will cut down the track? ... its not that good a place to work anymore anyway :lol:

The sydney head office is at pyrmont .. a building with 5 floors. Fairfax used to have the entire building. It now only occupies 2 floors. Google have taken the rest. Tho the only part of fairfax that makes good money, Domain (property), have moved to another office.

Its a shame. I know there are people there who genuinely want to do a good job of reporting the facts ... but you have to compromise a bit to try and stay alive ... one day we might be stuck with only news limited

Yep, hope it works out ok for you Strider. I grew up in the print media industry and worked briefly there. My old man rose through the ranks to run a large provincial newspaper. He had the sense (and was fortunate enough) to get out in the late 90s, not long after Tony O'Reilly's lot took it over and installed idiot 26 year olds with MBAs in senior management.

 

[yy_cheng]

Around the end of feb, one of the directors bought more shares in fairfax. Maybe the job cuts will get the share price up

 

[strider]

Yep, hope it works out ok for you Strider. I grew up in the print media industry and worked briefly there. My old man rose through the ranks to run a large provincial newspaper. He had the sense (and was fortunate enough) to get out in the late 90s, not long after Tony O'Reilly's lot took it over and installed idiot 26 year olds with MBAs in senior management.

Haha ... funnily enough, the part of the company i work in recently got restructured - mainly management so far. And i commented to some of my co-workers that it feels like they have put all the primary school kids in charge ... young relatively inexperienced peopl getting the management jobs - they might turn out great, i dunno, nothin very impressive so far

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Company is struggling ... there is no money in the news anymore

Must still be plenty of money in making shit up though.

 

[Incorrect]

Haha ... funnily enough, the part of the company i work in recently got restructured - mainly management so far. And i commented to some of my co-workers that it feels like they have put all the primary school kids in charge ... young relatively inexperienced peopl getting the management jobs - they might turn out great, i dunno, nothin very impressive so far

Strider - I worked at FFX up until about 18 months ago. I was in IT there, based at Pyrmont. As soon as they started outsourcing IT infrastructure and ops to India about 2.5 years ago I knew it was time to go. I loved working there, had 9 great years, made lots of good friends, learnt a shitload...

At the end of the day, the continual cuts they've made since 2012 haven't helped their margins. Good old (former CEO) Fred Hilmer pretty much buried Fairfax by burying his head in the sand. He had the opportunity to buy Seek and carsales.com back in their promising infancy but he saw no future in internet classifieds/advertising. Now those sites swamp FFX media embarrassingly.

Sorry to bore the rest of you...

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

At the end of the day, the continual cuts they've made since 2012 haven't helped their margins. Good old (former CEO) Fred Hilmer pretty much buried Fairfax by burying his head in the sand. He had the opportunity to buy Seek and carsales.com back in their promising infancy but he saw no future in internet classifieds/advertising. Now those sites swamp FFX media embarrassingly.

Sorry to bore the rest of you...

Yeh, Fred is essentially a very smart guy, but stuck in his ways (he was from McKinsey IIRC). If nothing else deals like carsales had the potential to reduce risk to the group. Murdoch was similarly backward, but had a lot more $$ to soak up his early bad calls regarding the way the industry was heading.

 

[Incorrect]

Yeh, Fred is essentially a very smart guy, but stuck in his ways (he was from McKinsey IIRC). If nothing else deals like carsales had the potential to reduce risk to the group. Murdoch was similarly backward, but had a lot more $$ to soak up his early bad calls regarding the way the industry was heading.

100% Re Murdoch BO'S but as you say, with fingers in so many other pies apart from print media, News could afford to make mistakes or underestimate new players on the scene. FFX has it's history in newspapers ( ie classified ads) to make money. When those famous rivers of gold dried up, well, we've seen what happens - cut cut cut. And if that don't work, repeat!!!

 

[emjaycee]

Strider - I worked at FFX up until about 18 months ago. I was in IT there, based at Pyrmont. As soon as they started outsourcing IT infrastructure and ops to India about 2.5 years ago I knew it was time to go. I loved working there, had 9 great years, made lots of good friends, learnt a shitload...

At the end of the day, the continual cuts they've made since 2012 haven't helped their margins. Good old (former CEO) Fred Hilmer pretty much buried Fairfax by burying his head in the sand. He had the opportunity to buy Seek and carsales.com back in their promising infancy but he saw no future in internet classifieds/advertising. Now those sites swamp FFX media embarrassingly.

Sorry to bore the rest of you...

It is interesting hearing these tales... I have been in IT/Telco for the last 22 years (shit am I that old now) and I saw the writing on the wall when Telco's in Aus started heavily outsourcing to overseas companies the bulk of their IT work and a lot of Customer Service functions about 10 or so years ago. I am still in IT and about to launch a product where one of our key differentiators in on-shore, local, Sydney based infrastructure and ops. There are a lot of companies out there who want local and can recognise the true cost of off-shoring.

I do think however that there can be too much of the younger management put into some companies but there needs to be a balance cause some of the older dinosaur types have their head in the sand like you mentioned.

 

[Incorrect]

It is interesting hearing these tales... I have been in IT/Telco for the last 22 years (shit am I that old now) and I saw the writing on the wall when Telco's in Aus started heavily outsourcing to overseas companies the bulk of their IT work and a lot of Customer Service functions about 10 or so years ago. I am still in IT and about to launch a product where one of our key differentiators in on-shore, local, Sydney based infrastructure and ops. There are a lot of companies out there who want local and can recognise the true cost of off-shoring.

I do think however that there can be too much of the younger management put into some companies but there needs to be a balance cause some of the older dinosaur types have their head in the sand like you mentioned.

Mate I could talk all day about the rights and wrongs and what not of what I saw when the "new guys" came in to take over. Probably deserves it's own thread!

Some of the original FFX people I worked with were dedicated to the company beyond anything I've seen elsewhere. I probably include myself in that bracket. Some of the simple/basic lack of troubleshooting and diagnosis skills by the guys coming in to take jobs off incumbents was mind blowing. And some of the dishonesty!! My god!

As an aside, my missus' company (bank) outsourced some of their back office operations a few years back to India. They're now bringing some of it back in house.

 

[hindy111]

Strider - I worked at FFX up until about 18 months ago. I was in IT there, based at Pyrmont. As soon as they started outsourcing IT infrastructure and ops to India about 2.5 years ago I knew it was time to go. I loved working there, had 9 great years, made lots of good friends, learnt a shitload...

At the end of the day, the continual cuts they've made since 2012 haven't helped their margins. Good old (former CEO) Fred Hilmer pretty much buried Fairfax by burying his head in the sand. He had the opportunity to buy Seek and carsales.com back in their promising infancy but he saw no future in internet classifieds/advertising. Now those sites swamp FFX media embarrassingly.

Sorry to bore the rest of you...

I read the whole thing

 

[El Diablo]

yay for you

 

[hindy111]

yay for you

Its probably time to bring out the gimp and see what he can do, what do you reckon?

 

[El Diablo]

i thought you were the gimp

 

[hindy111]

i thought you were the gimp

I'm sure someone on here is the gimp. I ain't the gimp thou. I don't even like leather lounges, sticks to my balls.

 

[Bigfella]

Must still be plenty of money in making shit up though.

And yet blokes like you do still do it for free

#grassroots

 

[Hollywood Jesus]

Hope you're not one of them mate.

It'll be a sad day when you can't buy a printed newspaper at your local agent, servo, Woolies........whatever.

I still far prefer to sit down with a coffee somewhere and read a paper than sit down and read a screen.

Suity

I've moved to the iPad version of the Australian. Not only is it cheaper but my iPad is a lot easier to lug around than a newspaper (and, of course, it also includes all the other iPaddy stuff). Then there's the video content and links, not to mention the iPad search engine which means I can look stuff up while reading an article etc.

Will be a sad day, though, if we lose FFX and are left only with News. The leftoid wankers tried to start The Saturday paper but it was just over-idealistic, partisan crap meant to fuel the ego of the cognoscenti. Has it actually failed and disappeared, yet?

Haven't given up the books, though. Can't beat a good, physical book, especially when your bookcases fill the walls of your study!