Postmedia Network Canada Corp. has made a series of executive appointments that president and CEO Paul Godfrey said put the company on the right footing to address “pretty aggressive strategic priorities” in the coming year.
The most significant appointment is the hiring of Simon Jennings to the newly created role of chief revenue and digital officer. Jennings, formerly executive vice-president of Torstar Digital and president of its Olive Media advertising network, will lead Postmedia’s digital and sales teams. He will join Postmedia at the end of the month.
Godfrey said Jenning’s digital expertise complements Postmedia’s well-publicized strategy to become a “digital first” company. “We didn’t look far afield because we realized that the ideal candidate was already in the city, in the industry and located at one of our competitors,” he said.
Jenning’s role, said Godfrey, is essentially a hybrid of that of Postmedia’s former EVP of digital media Malcolm Kirk (who left the company in November) and some of the duties of former chief transformation and revenue officer Wayne Parrish–a longtime colleague of Godfrey’s dating back to his days with the Toronto Sun who has been promoted to the role of COO.
In what Godfrey characterized as a “more streamlined” senior management team, Jennings and Postmedia’s two operational heads, Gordon Fisher (EVP of Western Canada operations) and Kevin Bent (EVP of Eastern Canada operations), will report into Parrish. Parrish, along with CFO Doug Lamb and newly appointed EVP, legal and general counsel Jeffrey Haar, will report into Godfrey.
Godfrey said the executive appointments give Postmedia “a leg up” on its strategy of “transformation and revenue generation” as the company–which operates daily newspapers including the National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald, as well as attendant digital offerings–continues to grapple with a challenging advertising environment and shifting readership.
The moves were announced as Postmedia also reported today that print advertising revenues for the three months ending Nov. 30 were $149.4 million, down 11.7% from the corresponding year-earlier period–dragged down by a slowdown in national ad sales. Total revenues slipped to $231.1 million from $254.1 million in the same period a year earlier.
Digital revenues for the quarter were down 2.7% to $22.6 million, which Postmedia attributed to “weak economic conditions” and a slowdown in national ad sales. However, the company said digital represents a “future growth opportunity” and that it would continue to focus on new initiatives in the space.
Postmedia’s first quarter profits were $14.3 million, up from $6 million a year ago, partly due to the October sale of its B.C. community newspapers and daily publication The Victoria Times Colonist to Glacier Media for $86.5 million.
“Some of our largest national advertisers have scaled back their spending and these cuts are being felt across our industry,” said Godfrey.
In addition to streamlining its operations and paying down debt, Godfrey said one of Postmedia’s key business objectives for the coming year is to develop a “stable of stars.” The company recently added former Maclean’s columnist Andrew Coyne and Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford.
“At the end of the day, people buy our product for our journalists, and audience and product development are two very important aspects of the way we do things,” said Godfrey. “If you can’t keep the quality of your content up, you’re not going to bring in advertisers or readers.”
