Nine Entertainment staff vote no confidence in CEO after announcement of 200 job cuts | Nine Entertainment

Nine Entertainment staff passed a motion of no confidence in chief executive Mike Sneesby on Friday afternoon and are preparing to go on strike, after Sneesby announced 200 jobs would be cut at the company.

Sneesby told staff he would cut 200 jobs due to the economic headwinds facing the media, with up to 90 positions to be retained at the former titles The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review.

The company said some highly valued colleagues would leave the company and tough decisions would be made by mid-July to save $30 million.

“Today we will announce measures in our publishing business to compensate for lost revenue related to the Meta deal and challenges in the advertising market,” Sneesby said.

Unfortunately, this will result in the departure of some of our colleagues in the coming months.

In March, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, informed publishers that it would not enter into new multimillion-dollar content deals when contracts expire this year.

Internal messages further identified between 70 and 90 jobs allegedly coming from the publishing division that houses the newspapers formerly owned by Fairfax. Across the business, Nine Television, Nine Radio, streaming service Stan and digital division nine.com.au, the workforce is 5000 people.

Any cuts to editorial resources will result in a less informed Australian public, said Michelle Rae, acting director of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).

The MEAA said the cuts at Nine added to a month of horror for Australian journalism.

On Friday, nine employees authorized their union to immediately prepare for a vote on whether to take a protected action.

Earlier this week, Seven West Media announced a restructuring that would see 150 job losses and earlier, News Corp Australia restructured and began cutting jobs.

It's not something we want to do, but it's something we need to do to continue building on a successful platform of high-quality journalism and digital subscription growth, Sneesby said.

Nine Publishing chief executive Tory Maguire told reporters it was the first time since 2017 that there had been a reduction in editorial staff.

The biggest newspaper cuts came in 2012, when what was then known as Fairfax Media cut 1,900 jobs, closed its main printing plants and took tabloid SMH and Age to prepare for a digital future.

But 12 years later, Maguire believes there is still much work to be done to evolve the operating model to create a sustainable future for mastheads.

In light of this, the publishing division is going to have to make significant savings in FY25, across the company, she told reporters.

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Over the coming weeks, the leadership team, including editors, will work on a plan to reduce staffing costs, including in newsrooms.

We are planning to reduce the number of employees in the publishing division by 70 to 90 people in the coming months.

But the company insists it is in a stronger position than its competitors.

“The publishing industry in particular can build on our continued success in growing our subscription revenue, particularly over the past year since we began work on significantly tightening paywalls” , Maguire said.

Sneesby said all of Nines' divisions were either fully digital or generating rapidly growing digital revenues – and each retained a leading position in its respective markets.

The cuts come on the eve of coverage of the Paris Olympics, for which the group paid $309 million for exclusive rights to the next five Olympics, from Paris in 2024 to Brisbane in 2032.

The games will be a showcase of what a truly integrated media company can deliver to every Australian and our advertising partners, Sneesby said.

To continue our transformation and leadership at Nines for decades to come, we must continue to invest in our strategic priorities, starting with the content, products and technology needed to serve our audiences.

It was a traumatic month for Nine with Peter Costello resigning as chairman days after the former federal treasurer was accused of assaulting a News Corp journalist at Canberra Airport, allegations Costello denied .

Former news and current affairs director Darren Wick abruptly left the company in March after a formal complaint from a member of staff.

Nine recently acknowledged the trauma caused by alleged bullying, abuse of power and sexual harassment in its newsrooms and told staff it needed to do more to make it a safe place to work.