Nine Entertainment, Australia's biggest media company, has announced it will cut around 30 newsroom positions at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, blaming the 'extreme state of disruption' caused by artificial intelligence.
Voluntary and targeted redundancies
On Tuesday, the managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, told staff the company was looking to cut 'around 30' positions through voluntary and targeted redundancies. Maguire said the exercise was not simply about cutting costs but was an 'evolution' to adapt to structural change.
'In the last 12 months, as we have discussed many, many times at the publishing town halls, we are in an extreme state of disruption because of AI,' she said.
Digital-first roles and retraining
The company plans to retrain staff and hire people for 'digital-first, reader-savvy, data-informed roles'. Maguire noted that the Australian Financial Review, which will not be affected by the restructure, is more evolved in its digital-first approach, having had a paywall since 2007.
The announcement comes two years after Nine Entertainment cut 200 jobs, including 90 positions from the legacy mastheads and the AFR. But Maguire said 'we are in the middle' of a major disruption caused by AI.
'The internet and social media did not disrupt us as much as … AI,' Maguire said.
AI impact on news consumption
According to the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026, 10% of news consumers worldwide use AI chatbots to get their news. For those under 35, it climbs to 16%. There have also been warnings that fewer people are clicking through to news stories from search engines because Google is providing AI summaries.
Research by the University of Sydney found that Australian journalism was largely 'invisible' in AI-generated news summaries from Microsoft Copilot, which overwhelmingly favours US or European media.
Financial pressures and previous cuts
Nine, the largest locally owned media company, comprises the publishing division, Nine Television, streaming service Stan, and the digital division nine.com.au. Its digital subscription revenue was down by 6% last year. Maguire said reader revenue stalled for the first time in three years, and the division was under 'enormous pressure', partly due to the popularity of AI search results.
In 2024, job cuts sparked industrial action and resulted in dozens of senior journalists taking voluntary redundancies from Nine's mastheads. At the time, Nine said the cost-cutting was necessary after Meta walked away from the news media bargaining code. Later that year, chief executive Matt Stanton said the company was facing $100m in cuts over the next two years.
When Nine merged with Fairfax Media in 2018, a total of 144 jobs were lost.
