Here are the business stories making the headlines locally and across the country this morning.
Aberdeen Uber launch ‘delayed for months’ amid legal challenge
Uber has hit the brakes on driver recruitment in Aberdeen in the face of a court challenge, delaying its launch for months.
The ride-hailing service is already late in getting to the Granite City having earlier eyed an August start date.
But a number of sources connected to efforts to bring the app-based private hire cars to Aberdeen have independently told us that Uber won’t launch until around November time.
The P&J understands a number of drivers have already been “onboarded” at the firm’s Aberdeen base at Berry Street.
Mail Online and Sun take axe to US-based workforces
Two of Britain's biggest newspaper publishers are taking the axe to their US workforces, slashing scores of jobs in the latest evidence of mounting financial pressures across the media sector.
Sky News has learnt that News UK, the publisher of The Sun, and DMGT, owner of the Daily Mail, have this week announced sweeping internal restructurings in their digital operations on the other side of the Atlantic.
Industry sources said on Friday the two companies were cutting significant numbers of employees in the US, where The Sun launched an American edition online four years ago.
By coincidence, the two sets of cutbacks are understood to have been launched on the same day.
Aberdeen beach playpark could become ‘national attraction’ – as major marketing plans drawn up
Aberdeen’s multi-million-pound playpark soon to be built at the beach is expected to become a “national attraction” – rivalling the best across the UK and Europe.
Work begins next week on the construction of the park, which will include a seven-storey structure called the Play Factory.
The £62 million project also includes an events field, amphitheatre and improvements to Broadhill.
Aberdeen City Council opened a new £1m playpark at Hazlehead Park in the summer.
ITV launches online shopping tool in scramble to replace lost advertising sales
ITV has launched an online shopping tool as it attempts to recover revenues lost by a decline in traditional advertising sales.
The broadcaster has released a discount code service for online shoppers that will automatically add cost-saving promotions when making internet purchases.
ITV will earn commissions when shoppers use the tool, called Kerching, which is available as a downloadable web browser extension.
It offers the company a new revenue stream as its traditional source of income slumps. ITV has been forced to cut hundreds of jobs after a sharp decline in advertising. Chief executive Carolyn McCall last year dubbed it the “‘worst advertising recession since the financial crisis”, though digital incomes have since begun to recover.