Last week Guardian News & Media (GNM), The Guardian’s parent company, announced a plan to cut costs by 20% over the next three years. It must do so to stem significant cash outflows and losses. At current spending levels, GNM is expected to post year-end losses in the $71 million range in March, says The Drum.

The three-year plan, presented by editor-in-chief Katharine Viner and chief executive David Pemsel, also includes the following goals:

• Reduce losses and break even by 2018-19
• Relaunch an enhanced membership program with a target of doubling revenue
• Align editorial and commercial operations to leverage higher-growth membership and digital opportunities
• Implement an advertising model that includes branded content, video and data
• Focus international growth in the U.S. and Australia
• Create a new data and insight team to support editorial and commercial innovation

The company’s austerity measures are likely to include staffing cuts. Guardian Editor Kath Viner is expected to announce those cuts next week, says Business Insider.

“Over the next three years, a growing and far deeper set of relationships with our audience will result in a reimagining of our journalism, a sustainable business model and a newly-focused digital organization that reflects our independence and our mission,” Viner said in a press release.

“Against the backdrop of a volatile market, we are taking immediate action to boost revenues and reduce our cost-base in order to safeguard Guardian journalism in perpetuity. This plan will ensure our business is increasingly adaptable and better able to respond quickly to the pace of change in the digital world,” added Pemsel.

Insider Take:

This news comes a year after the Guardian did a major revamp of its website and launched a new membership model. The Guardian appeared to be having success with the changes, judging by its record digital traffic late last year.

In November 2015, for example, the Guardian attracted 158 million monthly unique visitors, exceeding the previous high of 140 million set in September 2015, and marking the seventh month of record online traffic for the news outlet. The November numbers can be attributed, in part, to the Guardian’s coverage of the terrorist attacks in Paris that month, but consistently higher numbers indicate that the website changes were well received.

Despite the Guardian’s relative success, the changes came at a cost, and were perhaps too late to stop significant losses to the company. The Guardian now has to rethink those changes, adjust its expectations and make needed adjustments. Among the adjustments will be the abandonment of its plans to build an event hub near the newspaper’s King’s Cross headquarters, reports the Financial Times. We’ll be following the news, and will share additional details and updates as they become available.