Gannett CEO takes $200K pay cut as layoffs readied

NEW YORK - The chief executive of Gannett Co. will take a voluntary 17 percent pay cut through next year, while senior executives will have their salaries frozen as the nation's top newspaper publisher prepares for major layoffs next month.

In a company memo to staff obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Craig Dubow acknowledged "deep sacrifices" that all employees were making. He said he was reducing his annual pay by $200,000 beginning this month and continuing through 2009.

The memo did not specify his base compensation. According to proxy statements filed with federal regulators, he made $1.2 million in 2006 and 2007, and $200,000 is 17 percent of that amount.

Including bonuses, stock awards and other compensation, Dubow received $7.9 million in compensation last year, according to an AP analysis of the filings.

The pay freeze, meanwhile, covers 2009 salary for "all company and divisional officers," according to Monday's memo to staff.

"We commend Craig for his leadership in taking this step," Gannett presiding director Karen Hastie Williams said in the memo. "The board is well aware that the company and the media industry generally are experiencing difficult times."

Newspaper companies including Gannett are seeing ad revenue declines accelerate as the weak economy puts additional pressure on an ad market already suffering from a migration of readers to the Internet.

Last week, Gannett said it would lay off an additional 10 percent of the work force in its U.S. local newspapers division. The latest reductions, to come by early December, follow a 3 percent cut announced in August. Neither round affects USA Today, the nation's largest-circulation daily newspaper.

Gannett isn't revealing a specific number but said all the new reductions in that division would be involuntary. Other divisions are likely to see job cuts by year's end, too.

According to the company's annual report, Gannett had about 46,100 full- and part-time employees, the bulk in U.S. newspapers, at the end of 2007. That job count has been reduced by at least 1,100 during 2008 through previous reductions.

Many other newspaper publishers have also reduced staff, frozen wages or both.

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