The Philadephia Media Network, now in the process of trying to unload the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, said it wants to cut payroll by 37 through voluntary buyouts.
The move, blasted by the Newspaper Guild union, will affect reporters’ jobs as the company shrinks to a single newsroom.
“The company’s decision to decimate our already-shrunken ranks is hard to comprehend given the ever-competitive 24/7 nature of today’s media landscape,” said the Guild in its bulletin to newsroom employees.
“It is our company’s goal to get people to take the voluntary buyouts over the next 15 days,” said PMN spokesman Mark Block. If the company does not get 37 volunteers by Feb. 29, involuntary cuts will start March 1.
Block claimed the downsizing was “not affiliated with any potential sale of the company.”
PMN President Greg Osberg approached former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell back in October, according to sources, regarding putting together a potential buyout.
One potential bid team, headed by 94-year-old Ray Perelman, a local financier and philanthropist, with his billionaire son, financier Ron Perelman, has complained that they are being “excluded” from the bidding process.
Jeffrey Perelman, another son of Ray Perelman, who is estranged from his father and brother, is also said to be eyeing a rival bid. He did not return a call seeking comment.
Another Philadelphia businessman, Bart Blatstein, who last year bought the building housing the newspapers for $23 million, claimed he, too, was being blocked from bidding and said he might open a rival paper if he was not allowed into the process.
The two papers and the Web site had a small profit last year — said by one source to be about $4 million.
Evercore, hired in December to handle the bidding process, did not return calls.