In the long unraveling of print's dominance, Nine Entertainment has announced roughly 30 voluntary redundancies across its flagship mastheads — The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and others — as the company repositions itself around digital subscribers in an era reshaped by artificial intelligence and shifting advertising. The move, framed by publishing director Tory Maguire as necessary adaptation rather than retreat, reflects a tension familiar to every news organisation navigating the space between what still works and what must eventually replace it. Print revenue has held better than exp
Nine to cut 30 roles at SMH, The Age in digital-first restructure
Approximately 30 journalists and publishing staff face voluntary redundancy, with potential impacts on newsroom capacity, diversity, and investigative journalism capability.
Newsrooms cannot keep absorbing cuts without consequences
Mark
Why is Nine cutting jobs now, when the publishing division just made $153 million in profit last year?
Mimi
Because profit and growth are different things. The division is flat-lining—earnings are expected to stay the same in 2026. Print is still generating revenue, but it's not growing. Digital subscribers are growing, but not fast enough to offset print decline. Nine is cutting costs now to fund the digital pivot before the math gets worse.
Mark
But Maguire said print revenue held up better than expected. Doesn't that suggest they should wait?
Mimi
It does suggest that. But "better than expected" doesn't mean "growing." It means the decline is slower than feared. Nine is reading that as a window—print is still healthy enough to fund the transition, but won't be forever. They're moving now while they have cash.
Mark
What does the Microsoft deal actually do for them?
Mimi
It gets Nine's journalism in front of people using Copilot. When someone asks an AI chatbot a question, Nine's articles might show up in the answer. Nine gets paid for that. But the deal is worth less than $25 million—pocket change for a division making $153 million. The real value is precedent. It shows tech companies will pay for news, which matters when governments start forcing them to.
Mark
Is this about AI replacing journalists?
Mimi
Not directly. It's about AI changing how people find news. Google's AI Overview sits at the top of search results now, and people click through to news sites less often. Nine is losing traffic that way. The Microsoft deal is Nine trying to get in front of people through AI instead of losing them to it. But the job cuts are about the advertising market being tough and the company needing to be leaner to survive the transition.
Mark
What's the union worried about?
Mimi
That you can't keep cutting newsrooms without consequences. Fewer journalists means less investigation, less original reporting, less diversity in who gets to tell stories. It means the people left behind work harder for the same pay. And it means less accountability journalism—the kind that takes time and resources but doesn't always drive clicks.
Mark
Will this actually save Nine?
Mimi
It depends on whether digital subscribers grow fast enough. If they do, the cuts buy time and the pivot works. If they don't, Nine has just made its newsrooms smaller and less capable of doing the work that builds loyal subscribers in the first place. That's the real gamble.
O Pulso
- Roughly 30 journalists and publishing staff face voluntary redundancy as Nine accelerates a digital-first strategy that cannot afford to wait for print's gradual collapse.
- AI disruption is not abstract here — Google's AI Overview has already eroded click-through traffic to news sites, and Nine's own Microsoft Copilot deal, valued at under $25 million, signals how precarious the new content economy has become.
- The publishing division generated $153 million in profit in 2025, yet 2026 earnings are projected flat, exposing the gap between a business that still performs and one that is losing its growth momentum.
- The journalists' union has called the cuts devastating, warning that repeated rounds of redundancy hollow out newsroom diversity, investigative capacity, and the ability to hold power to account.
- Nine's broader portfolio reshuffle — selling Domain for $1.4 billion, acquiring outdoor media company QMS, extracting $33 million in costs — frames these job losses as part of a sweeping strategic transformation, not an isolated correction.
- The real verdict arrives in August, when Nine's 2026 results will reveal whether the digital pivot is beginning to reverse the division's flattening trajectory or merely delaying a deeper reckoning.
In the long unraveling of print's dominance, Nine Entertainment has announced roughly 30 voluntary redundancies across its flagship mastheads — The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and others — as the company repositions itself around digital subscribers in an era reshaped by artificial intelligence and shifting advertising. The move, framed by publishing director Tory Maguire as necessary adaptation rather than retreat, reflects a tension familiar to every news organisation navigating the space between what still works and what must eventually replace it. Print revenue has held better than expected, yet the company has chosen not to wait for its decline to become a crisis before reorganising around the future.
Nine Entertainment's publishing division is cutting roughly 30 roles across The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAToday, and Brisbane Times, with redundancies targeting print operations and the free news site nine.com.au. Publishing director Tory Maguire announced the restructure on Tuesday, framing it as necessary adaptation to a media landscape transformed by technology and advertising pressure — even as she acknowledged that print revenue has performed better than expected.
The cuts arrive amid industry-wide disruption from artificial intelligence. Google's AI Overview has reduced click-through traffic to news websites, and Nine this month signed a deal with Microsoft allowing its Copilot chatbot to reference Nine masthead content in search results. An investment bank valued the deal at under $25 million, though Nine characterised it as groundwork for future licensing arrangements as governments push tech companies to pay for news.
The publishing division remains Nine's second-best performing unit, generating $526 million in revenue and $153 million in earnings in the 2025 financial year. But 2026 projections show flat earnings — a notable shift — and Nine has already extracted $33 million in costs from the division over the past year. The company has also reshaped its broader portfolio, selling its Domain stake for $1.4 billion and acquiring outdoor media company QMS for $850 million.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance called the cuts devastating and urged Nine to prioritise redeployment and voluntary options, warning that repeated job losses erode workload capacity, newsroom diversity, and investigative journalism. The Australian Financial Review, also owned by Nine, will not be affected. The true measure of the digital-first strategy will come in August, when Nine reports its 2026 results and the question of whether the pivot is working becomes impossible to defer.
Nine Entertainment's publishing division is cutting roughly 30 jobs across its mastheads—The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAToday, and Brisbane Times—as the company accelerates its shift toward digital subscribers and away from print. The redundancies, initially offered on a voluntary basis, will affect staff in print operations and the free news site nine.com.au. The restructure was announced to staff on Tuesday morning by Tory Maguire, managing director of the publishing division, who framed the move as necessary adaptation to a media landscape transformed by technology and advertising pressure.
Maguire told staff the company needed to protect its journalism by moving faster into the digital future, even as she acknowledged that print revenue has performed better than anticipated. The company is betting that investing in digital subscribers and new audience connections will offset the losses from print's long decline. Yet the timing reveals the tension at the heart of modern news publishing: print is not dead, but it is no longer the growth engine, and the company cannot afford to wait for it to fully collapse before reorganizing around what comes next.
The cuts arrive against a backdrop of industry-wide disruption from artificial intelligence. Google's AI Overview function, rolled out over the past two years, sits atop search results and has reduced click-through traffic to news websites and other domains alike. Nine itself signed a deal with Microsoft this month that will allow the company's AI chatbot Copilot to reference content from Nine's mastheads in search results, with Nine receiving compensation. An investment bank assessment valued that deal at less than $25 million, though it was characterized as laying groundwork for future licensing agreements as governments move toward requiring tech companies to pay for news content.
The publishing division remains Nine's second-best performing business unit. In the 2025 financial year, it generated $526 million in revenue and $153 million in earnings before standard deductions. Subscriber growth offset declines in print sales, the company reported. Yet projections for 2026 show earnings are expected to be flat—a significant shift from the division's recent performance. Nine has already extracted $33 million in costs from the division in the past year and has been reshaping its portfolio, selling its stake in the real estate platform Domain for $1.4 billion and divesting its talkback radio business, while acquiring the outdoor media company QMS for $850 million.
Cassie Derrick, a representative of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union that represents journalists, called the cuts devastating and urged Nine to avoid forced redundancies where possible, prioritizing redeployment and voluntary options instead. She warned that newsrooms cannot absorb repeated job cuts without consequences for workload, diversity, journalism quality, and the ability of journalists to investigate and hold power accountable. The union has demanded more detailed information about the scope and timing of the cuts and says it will engage with Nine on the restructure.
The Australian Financial Review, also owned by Nine, will not be affected by the cuts. The publishing division will engage with the union as it moves forward with the redundancies, though the company's broader strategy—toward digital subscribers, away from print, and adapted to an AI-mediated information landscape—appears set regardless of how the cuts are implemented. The real test will come in August when Nine reports its 2026 results and reveals whether the digital-first pivot has begun to reverse the division's flattening earnings.
Citações Notáveis
We need to keep shifting towards the digital-first future— Tory Maguire, managing director of Nine's publishing division
Newsrooms cannot keep absorbing job cuts without consequences for workloads, diversity, quality journalism and the ability of journalists to hold power to account— Cassie Derrick, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union representative
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Economy & Finance