There’s likely to be no new revenue from Meta, and ad sales have been poor. Over the past few weeks, there have been more than a few budget presentations and grim faces walking the corridors.

News made $1.59 billion in Australian revenue in the 2023 financial year, corporate filings show. It had $775 million in operating expenses, spent $638 million on sales and admin, and (somehow) employed about 4000 people – where it keeps them, we don’t know. But January to March was “horrific” for ad sales, one insider said, and April to June isn’t looking much better. Advertising accounted for 39 per cent of News’ revenue.

It could save itself $30 million by avoiding a repeat of the “restructuring charges” it spent in FY23. It spent $23 million in FY22. That, plus not having the heavy Betr chain around its neck (it lost $68 million in “equity investments” in FY23), would easily save $50 million.

News Corp presents its global third-quarter earnings on May 9, AEST, and it needs a good story to tell. About this time last year, it announced $160 million in global cost cuts. Its share price is up about 47 per cent since then – investors sure are doing well.

This was all the backdrop to the annual meeting of editors, held these past couple of weeks in Brisbane’s Courier Mail offices. Every year, the editors of the News Corp mastheads get together and discuss what events to cover and campaigns to run next.

The palace intrigue is that an editorial reshuffle is imminent, and there’s talk of a seven-day roster. Instead of separated weekday, weekend teams producing the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the rumour is there could soon be one team doing it all, working whatever days the roster says.

A News spokesman said it, like all companies – including Nine Entertainment (publisher of The Australian Financial Review) – has budget meetings ahead of the new financial year. “This is business as usual,” he said.

“As we have said before, we don’t comment on speculation. All companies are always looking at optimal operating models [including Nine, which is doing so], and we have taken no decisions yet.”

The editors did not discuss the now $50 million restructure, we were assured. Maybe not in formal meetings. Outside of those, we’re not so sure.