Trinity Mirror is understood to be preparing to close digital media brands UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d while cutting jobs in the UK to fund a push into North America.
Around 27 roles in total are expected to be lost, with a further eight digital jobs created.
Around 14 people in the the Mirror’s “new formats” team, which includes both sites as well as football-focused spin-off Mirror Row Zed, were put on a 30-day redundancy notice period on Wednesday.
Martin Belam, who was until Wednesday’s announcement editor for new formats, said: “We’re going to stop doing them, which is sad, but I’d always much rather try something new than sit on my hands fretting about the future of digital media without actually trying to influence or change it.”
The remaining roles under threat are in print, including picture and production staff, news and feature writers. Some roles are expected to be removed as a result of the merging of the digital operations of the Sunday Mirror and People.
A Trinity Mirror spokesperson said: “We have been open about the need to manage costs, ensuring we are making the best use of our resources as well as driving growth as part of our core strategy.
“UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d are more niche areas and have very high costs for the volume of traffic. It is therefore more sustainable for us to invest resource in an integrated digital team, focusing on the main areas of the Mirror site which have more mass-market appeal. We remain committed to digital and will continue to invest and innovate in this area, including with new roles both now and in the future. The sites will remain for the time-being.
“We are also proposing reducing a small number of roles in our print editorial and production teams. This is largely as a result of more effective ways of working following the integration of the Sunday teams last year, but also includes amalgamating some of our district cover.”
Projects such as UsVsTh3m, founded in May 2013 as a standalone site, and data-focused brand Ampp3d have been credited with helping to grow the Mirror’s online audience rapidly in the past two years. Between April 2013 and this month, total unique browsers to the Mirror’s national properties more than tripled from just under 1.2 million to more than 3.8 million.
The projects were the brainchild of Belam and former Mirror online director Malcolm Coles, who joined the Telegraph as digital director at the start of this year.
Trinity’s attempt to put more emphasis on the US follows efforts by the Guardian, the Daily Mail, and most recently the Independent to expand into North America in search of bigger audiences to grow online ad revenue.
Last month, Trinity Mirror reported an 8% fall in underlying revenues for the first four months of 2015, due to a 14% fall in advertising revenue and a 10% decline in revenues from print.
Belam added: “We initially set up both UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d with everybody on three-month contracts, to try and replicate the energy you need to make a start-up work.
“The fact that they lasted this long and will be missed by the people who enjoyed them is a testament to the talent of the teams themselves, who I love like family. I think Ampp3d & UsVsTh3m have just produced a brilliant range of coverage of the general election and the aftermath, and I’m very proud of that.”
