Memo: Transcontinental details restructuring and layoffs
In a memo sent on May 30 from Mike Therien at Transcontinental, he details the company’s enhanced digital strategy.
The following memo was sent to Transcontinental staff on May 30, 2016, from Mike Therien, Senior Director, Content Strategy
Today TC Media’s Content Team is announcing a number of changes designed to improve our competitive position in a rapidly changing and financially challenging media market.
Enhanced digital strategy
In both Quebec and Atlantic Canada, structural changes will increase the emphasis on our digital media products, increasing the speed with which we post breaking news to our web and mobile sites across all of our more than 100 properties.
- Digital Teams will monitor, write, post and share breaking and viral TC Media’s content across the chain’s many sites.
- These teams will be aided by Social Media managers and Analytics leaders to maximize real-time audience opportunities as never before.
- TC Media has invested in new technology from Adobe that will allow this content sharing to happen more effectively.
- Regional Audience Managers will ensure rapid two-way content sharing between local newspapers/websites in their designated regions.
- This shared complementary and supplementary TC Media’s content will not replace the focus of each website, which will remain fiercely local.
Leadership structure
In order to facilitate these changes most effectively, the leadership group in Quebec has been reorganized and the province divided into three regions, each with a Regional Content Director and a Regional Audience Manager. These leadership teams will report to Quebec Content Director Sylvia Cerasi. The digital sharing program will be led by Metro Editor-in- Chief Yannick Pinel. In Atlantic Canada, the Regional Editors and Audience Managers will report to Thane Burnett. Local coverage decisions will still be made in the cities and towns by local editors and staff, but that content will now be augmented with more of the best work from within each TC region. Your managers will meet with you shortly to discuss the changes, and training will be provided soon.
Departures
As you are well aware, we are operating in a financially-challenging and fast-changing media market. And like the rest of the print media world, TC Media’s Local Solutions revenue has dropped significantly while other costs have continued to rise. Unfortunately, this situation has led us to eliminate a certain number of employee and manager positions in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. As part of this restructuring, and due to the shrinking print product market for advertising and distribution, the Newfoundland page-building Centre located in St. John’s will be closed and that work will now be done in the Maritime Page-Building Centre in Charlottetown, PEI. That is where the majority of the non-Quebec TC Media print papers are currently being paginated. This transition will take place over the next month. Impacted staff members are being informed today. We wish them all well in their career transitions and thank them sincerely for their contributions.
Thank you all for your hard work.
Mike Therien
Senior Director, Content Strategy
