Last week, NI confirmed it is to merge its sales teams into one department covering all five newspapers.
NI declined to comment on the redundancies that will follow the changes, but noted that James Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation Europe & Asia, has acknowledged internally that there will be "some redundancies".
The company plans to organise the merged commercial team around agency-focused hubs, each housing between six and 10 people. Each team will, among others, house a Times Media trader, News Group Newspapers trader, an inserts/magazine trader, a digital trader, a thelondonpaper trader and a creative specialist. NI expects the teams to be operational by the end of September.
Paul Hayes, News International's commercial managing director who will oversee the new division, denied the changes are a cost-cutting exercise.
"NI acting as a group in this way should have size and scale and if we are to act as such, we have to have relationships with agencies that are focused on value," he said.
"I do believe a future of combative and aggressive agency relations will not be the smart thing to do. This is not about using a big baseball bat and emphasising our new scale with agencies. We want to improve relations."
As part of a range of management changes, four senior NI directors have been given new roles, three of which are newly created, reporting to Hayes.
Times Media trading director Dominic Carter will become NI trading director; Claire Myerscough, currently Times Media development director, has been made NI business intelligence director; Patricia Kill moves to become NI sales support director, having previously been head of ad sales operations across the group, and David German retains his role as NI classified director.
One agency director believes there is "rigidity" to the way The Times and The Sun are sold to agencies and is concerned that the changes will take a while to bed in.
Rival newspaper groups are, perhaps unsurprisingly, sceptical about the changes. The head of one told Media Week that selling across Times Media and News Group Newspapers was "not a natural fit".
"I am not convinced it is the best way to go forward," he said. "The changes will not grow their revenue base, but it will be a more efficient way to generate sales. This is about cutting out costs."
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