News Corp Adelaide redundancies. News Corp is outsourcing subediting jobs in Adelaide to AAP-owned production company PageMasters. The Australian reported yesterday that 20 subs’ jobs would go, and fewer than five photographers from The Advertiser, Sunday Mail and Messenger community newspaper group, but a News Corp spokeswomen wouldn’t today confirm numbers, saying it was still consulting on the cuts. She said News Corp would first ask for voluntary redundancies, and look at other options including redeployment. “We are specifically looking at ways we can reduce our print production costs … Our aim is to outsource the majority of print production to Pagemasters from July 1,” she said.

The Advertiser was among the News Corp newspapers last year to have most of its photographers made redundant, and a deal made with AAP to outsource their photography work. AAP took on many of the photographers made redundant as part of that agreement. News Corp is a shareholder in AAP, along with Fairfax Media and Seven West Media.

Headline of the day. In The Australian today:

Trouble brewing for Ten’s owner. A fight between the family that controls CBS — Ten’s owner — could lead to executives at the company being ousted. That in turn could open a window for someone to snatch back control of Ten if the executives responsible for the deal are no longer there to protect it. Perhaps the Murdochs may be interested?

The Redstone family, is involved in an increasingly bitter argument as Shari Redstone (daughter of the company’s founder, Sumner Redstone) tries to force CBS to takeover Viacom (and bailout the poorly performing cable TV channel operator). The Redstones control National Amusements, which is a majority owner of both companies. On Monday, CBS sued its biggest shareholder to prevent Redstone from “harming the company and its public stockholders”. The Redstone family owns 10% of the shares in CBS, but controls 80% of the votes.

According to CBS, the voting structure has raised concerns that the pressure from Redstone to negotiate a merger with Viacom may not be in the best interest of CBS’s non-Redstone/National Amusements investors. 

CBS might not get time to pursue its legal action. It is due to hold its annual shareholder meeting on Friday, where, if Redstone is tough enough, she could use her 80% voting power to force out some directors and assert control over the company and the board. No doubt the Murdoch family and News Corp are awake to what is happening and could move if Ten comes back on the market. — Glenn Dyer

Coming up: The Weekly with the NY Times. You can hear the noses crunching out of joint at News Corp around the world, especially at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. FX, a channel owned by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox and streaming website Hulu, has announced a new television program deal with The New York Times for a weekly news program. The Weekly will follow the style of the popular Times podcast The Daily, which follows stories that appear in The Times and the journalists reporting them.

Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are both bitter rivals of the New York Times. (“Why not us?” I hear them scream, along with News Corp CEO Robert Thomson). –– Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. There was something in it for everyone last night, even SBS, which had a slightly better Monday night. The ABC’s parade of news and current affairs programs did OK, but they remain off the pace of previous years in terms of viewing numbers, especially Australian Story (803,000 nationally) which used to be a weak night in the metros. It has been hurt by the slide in viewers from the 7pm ABC News and 7.30 which had a little spark last night with the Leigh Sales interview with Hillary Clinton — 936,000 viewers nationally. 

In regional markets it was Seven News first with 623,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 535,000, Home and Away with 471,000, then House Rules with 422,000, and was the 5.30pm part of The Chase with 415,000. Read the rest at the Crikey website.