Hayters, the nurturing ground for a legion of leading sports writers, has axed six staff – one-third of its workforce – as a result of the grim economic climate.
According to a report by Press Gazette, three London-based reporters and the desk manager are to lose their jobs, while the redundancies of the north-east and north-west reporters means Hayters no longer has any correspondents outside the capital. The news was broken to staff on Friday 13th, although no one from the company had returned Press Gazette‘s calls.
Founded by the late Reg Hayter in 1954, Hayters merged with the Teamwork agency in 2003 and in 2006 was acquired by the Dutch data and results services company, to become Infostrada Hayters, a move that joint chief executive Gerry Cox said would “take our expertise on to a global platform”.
Infostrada Hayters now offers news, match reports, features, previews, statistics and ghost-written columns. A newswire service was launched after the Infostrada merger, pitched as a rival to PA Sport, although it is believed that this has not managed to make much impact.
Press Gazette reports that, following a board meeting last week, Cox and fellow chief executive Nick Callow were told to cut costs in order to reduce monthly losses.
Hayters made a £197,799 operating loss in 2007, down from £304,544 in 2006, according to the most recent set of accounts.
More on sports desk job cuts:
Lovejoy job “at risk†at Sunday Times
Redundancy round ‘complete’ at Herald group
Mair and Knight leave Telegraph; Buckley goes from Obs
Express to cut more than 70 jobs
Publishers pull the plug on two football blogs
Brighton’s weekly sports paper to close
NUJ chapel protest at Independent‘s sports cuts
Click here for Press Gazette’s latest graph of industry job losses
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