Hong Kong's South China Morning Post cuts management pay, puts staff on unpaid leave
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SCMP CEO Gary Liu cited a 20 per cent fall in revenues in the last financial year.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
HONG KONG (REUTERS) - Hong Kong's flagship English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, owned by Alibaba Group Holding, will cut senior management pay and ask staff to take unpaid leave for three weeks, a staff letter showed.
Chief executive Gary Liu said in the letter the cost cuts were needed because of a 20 per cent fall in revenues in the 2019/20 financial year and a 50 per cent drop in the latest quarter despite more readers amid last year's protests and the coronavirus outbreak.
Mr Liu said "limited" layoffs would take place, salaries would be frozen and he was cutting "almost everything that can be spared" on operations, from non-essential travel to the annual company party.
"SCMP's journalists have withstood tear gas, petrol bombs, dangerous confrontations, and exposure to deadly disease, not to mention the countless hours spent pursuing stories that have powered our growth," Mr Liu said.
"But even with resolve and immense audience growth, SCMP's revenues declined," he said, adding that the newspaper was heavily reliant on the recession-hit Hong Kong economy.
The newspaper reported that the pay of senior management would be cut and staff would be put on unpaid leave. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Liu's letter.
From Rupert Murdoch's News UK to McClatchy's chain of newspapers across the United States, news publishers are attracting record numbers of readers as people in lockdown seek information, yet advertising revenue has plummeted.
The Hong Kong newspaper, which is more than 116 years old, was taken over by Alibaba from Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok in a US$266 million (S$380 million) deal in 2015.
