The leading British purveyor of motorcycle sports and heritage DVDs, most famous for its exclusive rights to Isle of Man TT video coverage, has been forced to sack 15 members of its workforce. These are the first redundancies that the Manx-based company has made in 30 years of trading.
Managing director Peter Duke says his business has been repeatedly hard-hit by the loss of retail outlets in the UK high street and the move to digital downloads, beginning with the demise of Woolworths in 2008 and now the recent failure of the HMV chain.
The redundancies were announced at Duke’s Douglas operations centre on Friday 25 January and affect a range of jobs at the company, including marketing, call-centre and sales staff, and delivery drivers.
In recent years Duke Marketing has been trying to counter its difficulties with an increasing paucity of high-street distribution channels by building an on-line sales presence via www.dukevideo.com
Â