Swiss publisher Tamedia makes massive job cuts and closes printing plants

Tamedia makes massive job cuts and closes printing plants Keystone-SDA

The TX Group has announced the reduction of around 200 full-time positions in the printing plants of its subsidiary Tamedia. In addition, 90 jobs will be affected in the editorial offices, the group announced on Tuesday.

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The redundancies are subject to a consultation process, the TX Group wrote in its press release on the half-year results. Social plans will be applied. This also includes the possibility of early retirement. Tamedia currently employs 1,800 people in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.

Tamedia is no longer able to operate three printing plants profitably, it said. Printing plants will therefore be successively shut down: the printing centre in Bussigny, canton Vaud, is expected to close at the end of March 2025. The printing plant in Zurich will close at the end of 2026, meaning that printing will be concentrated at the centre in Bern.

Limit digital offering to four brands

The media company also wants to limit its digital offering to four brands: Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung, Basler Zeitung and, in French-speaking Switzerland, 24 Heures. Der Bund and Tribune de Genève will retain their own digital presence, the group wrote. Titles from the media company with less reach are to be integrated into the four brands mentioned. All Tamedia titles will continue to be available as printed newspapers. The #12App and the Verkehrsmonitor will be discontinued, according to the press release.

In addition, Tamedia intends to organise advertising marketing internally from the beginning of 2025. The relevant teams from media marketer Goldbach are to be integrated. Goldbach supported this development. TX Group held out the prospect of a more detailed announcement from Tamedia at a later date.

Stable overall turnover

The comprehensive restructuring is a reaction to the situation of paid media in the Tamedia division. Once again, the situation was not very pleasing, the press release said. Here, the adjusted margin continued to fall and amounted to 2.6%.

However, the TX Group maintained its turnover in the first half of the year and worked more profitably. The group, which is known to the general public primarily for its media brands 20 Minuten and Tages-Anzeiger as well as for the Jobs, Riccardo and Homegate marketplaces, reported a maintained turnover of CHF461 million ($544 million) for the first six months of 2024.

According to the TX Group, this is due in particular to the out-of-home advertising company Clear Channel Switzerland, which was acquired in April 2023 and is included in the financial statements for the first time for six months. Organic revenue decreased by 6.3%. Both advertising revenues at Tamedia and 20 Minuten and the print business declined.

The profitability of the diversified group continued to improve. The operating profit at EBIT level increased by 9.7% to CHF23.5 million. The adjusted operating result, which the TX managers emphasised, increased by 4.1% to CHF56.5 million, while the corresponding margin rose to 12.3% (previous year: 11.8%).

Marketplaces continue to operate very profitably

The online marketplaces combined in the Swiss Marketplace Group (SMG) continued to operate extremely profitably and increased their margins once again. With an initiative to further increase competitiveness, a mid-double-digit million franc amount is also to be saved and reinvested by the end of 2026. This should promote growth and innovation.

The margin also improved at 20 Minuten, albeit at a low level. Goldbach managed to return to a positive adjusted operating result.

The bottom line for the TX Group was a profit of CHF24.5 million in the first half of the year, compared with CHF13.7 million in the same period of the previous year. As usual, TX management is not providing a concrete outlook for the year as a whole. At Tamedia, the time horizon for achieving the margin targets set has been extended by one year to 2027. By then, the adjusted margin should be 8% to 10%.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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