Seattle Times to cut about 200 jobs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seattle Times Co plans to cut about 200 jobs at its flagship paper, it said on Monday, as it joins the ranks of other newspaper publishers struggling with falling advertising revenue and declining circulation.

The cuts, which will come through layoffs and freezing open positions, are part of $15 million in budget reductions, according to an e-mail memo sent to Times employees from Publisher Frank Blethen and President Carolyn Kelly and obtained by Reuters. They amount to about 11 percent of the paper's 1,845 employees.

"We had hoped the expense reductions made at the beginning of the year would prevent the need for further downsizing, but that is not the case," Blethen and Kelly wrote. "This is not an action we take lightly -- we recognize and regret that these decisions have a considerable impact on people's lives."

A Seattle Times Co spokeswoman confirmed the memo's authenticity.

The Times will eliminate about 45 newsroom positions, the paper reported. As many as 30 of those cuts could come through layoffs, it also reported.

Seattle Times Co includes the namesake paper, as well as other papers in Washington state, including the Yakima Herald-Republic. It is majority owned by the Blethen family, which recently said it would seek a buyer for its newspapers at the other end of the country, in Maine.

Sacramento Bee and Miami Herald publisher McClatchy Co owns slightly less than half of Seattle Times Co. The Times also handles advertising, production, circulation and marketing for rival paper The Seattle Post-Intelligencer under a joint operating agreement. The Post-Intelligencer is owned by privately held Hearst Corp.

Many U.S. newspapers and their publishers are shedding staff through layoffs and buyouts as they try to trim expenses amid an ongoing revenue decline. Among them are the New York Times Co, The Washington Post Co and Tribune.

The Times earlier this year cut its budget by $21 million, the paper reported on Monday.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan; Editing by Braden Reddall)