Bloomberg cuts 100 jobs in multimedia restructuring

The economic downturn, which has affected nearly all news orgainsations in the US, due to a steep cut back in advertising, has finally taken its toll on the businss news agency, Bloomberg, which axed 100 jobs in its multimedia division, the first time since it was founded in 1981.

The private financial news company founded by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, employs over 10,000 people and the job cuts represent 1 per cent of its entire workforce.

Although the company generated $6 billion in revenue last year, Bloomberg avoided resorting to any cuts so far, unlike the print media in the US, which is in dire straits with job cutting, selling assets and even bankruptcies.

Most of the job cuts affect those based in New York City but the company may resort to wielding the axe on more jobs in the UK, Asia and Europe as well as restructure Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg operates 24-hour business and financial service TV channels in seven languages in 11 countries including the Americas, Asia and Europe as well as Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan and China and reaches more than 200 million homes.

It withdrew its "Night Talk" programme and laid off its anchor Mike Schneider as part of its restructuring plan in its multimedia division, which includes Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio.

Bloomberg Television managing editor John Meehan, had resigned from the company last week and four months back, Andrew Lack was hired to look after Bloomberg's multimedia division.

Andrew Lack, denied that the job cuts had anything to do with recession, and said that Bloomberg is also hiring nearly1,000 people to be absorbed in its other divisions, but the broadcast operation required restructuring.

He also told employees that by having only one global service now, would help the company to "make better use of our resources and eliminate duplicative efforts across the channels."