What: New York’s El Diario, an ImpreMedia newspaper, dismissed 13 employees last week of which 6 belong to the Editorial Team.
Why it matters: The new cost cutting round reflects costs pressures that are faced by newspapers in large U.S. cities. Smaller market community newspapers have been a bit more shielded from the heavy downfall in ad revenues. Impremedia’s new CEO Gabriel Dantur acknowledged that the company has lost money in each of the 4 years since the Argentinean Group La Nacion bought ImpreMedia.
New York City’s largest Spanish-language newspaper El Diario last week dismissed 13 employees, of which 6 belong to the editorial team. Manuel Avendano, Night Editor of El Diario, told NY1 that “out of 100 employees El Diario used to have, only 35 remain.” NY1’s Joaquin Inoa reports that some employees think that El Diario will cease publication in print. impreMedia’s new CEO Gabriel Dantur notes that the paper will continue to be printed, but that measures will be taken to put more emphasis on digital, mobile and social network communications. In mid 2014 El Diario went through a redesign led by Juan Varela, the VP of Content at the time, Varela noted that the idea was to redefine the concept of a quality popular newspaper.
While many Spanish-language newspapers have strong community newspaper features and have been somewhat shielded from the heavy decline in ad-revenue -community newspapers in smaller markets have held relatively strong compared to large metropolitan dailies-, in large cities like New York and Los Angeles the environment has been much more challenging.
Agency Approach
impreMedia last year also introduced IM Studio ñ-an in-house Marketing Solutions division. The unit develops brand-centric, “customized opportunities through own-able & shareable content to meet the needs of clients looking to reach the evolving US Hispanic audience.” The overall company now brands itself as a “marketing solutions company with the soul of a publisher.”
In addition to El Diario , impreMedia publishes La Opinion in Los Angeles, also a daily, as well as weeklies La Raza (Chicago), La Opinion de la Bahia (San Francisco, formerly called El Mensajero) and La Prensa in Orlando. The group also publishes ESPN Deportes La Revista under a license from ESPN and digital properties Rumbo (Houston, formerly also a print newspaper), ParaTiMujer.com, gossip site Flashpik.com as well as soccer site QuieroMasFutbol.
National Magazine Vista, which mas mostly distributed as an insert into newspapers, was discontinued last year.[ctahcb]
