As CNN, ABC News and others grapple with an advertising downturn and lower linear viewership, the new mandate is to trim costs and find savings however they can while staffers weather the storm.
The new “culture of productivity” at Procter & Gamble Co. could cost marketing executives, agencies and other marketing suppliers plenty, as each has been targeted for deeper cuts, executives told analysts and investors at a meeting in Cincinnati yesterday.
Exclusives
The payroll purge affected about 10% of the roughly 200 people who work on The Tonight Show, still the top-rated latenight program.
Raycom Media, owner of the Fox affiliate in Panama City, Fla., laid off eight workers last month in a downsizing move. Six were full-timers and two were part-time employees.
Although syndicated entertainment magazine show Access Hollywood is having a strong season, with ratings up 5% from last year, there were significant layoffs Wednesday. Sources place the number of employees let go at 14.
FCC OKs WUPW Sale; Layoffs Look Likely
The $22 million sale of LIN’s Toledo, Ohio, Fox affiliate to American Spirit Media got FCC approval on Monday. A service-sharing agreement with Raycom CBS affiliate WTOL attached to the sale allows the stations to share news staff and broadcasts.
NBC Entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt is looking to slim down his bloated marketing department as part of an overhaul of the struggling Peacock Network. In the coming weeks, NBC Entertainment is set to undergo a revamp that will result in scores of pink slips (roughly 2% of the staff) across marketing, promotions and publicity, sources close to the situation said.
The University of Houston’s noncommercial station made the move as part of cost-cutting by the new general manager. Affected were personnel in production, programming, development, technology and administration.
Multiple news layoffs on- and off-camera accompany the expansion Monday evening of the Tribune ABC affiliate’s almost-year-old News with a Twist brand into the 5 p.m. time slot, in addition to its current 6 p.m. time slot. Gone are Jessica Holly, Glynn Boyd, Kristina Pink and Christian Jennings, plus four photographers. Also gone is the station’s 6:30 p.m. newscast, which Holly once anchored.
PBS is eliminating 13 current staff positions and eight vacancies, PBS President Paula Kerger said in a letter to the system Wednesday.
Fox-owned WFLD Chicago notified 10 technicians Thursday that their positions are being eliminated, the result of establishment of a central operations hub in Las Vegas set to come online this summer. The cuts will occur in the next month or so.
The Dallas PBS station announced today that it has eliminated the positions of six employees and is ending, on April 22, production of Think that airs three Fridays a month at 7 p.m.
Only a week after SJL Broadcasting purchased the ABC affiliate and station officials announced there would be no job losses among the station’s 100 or so employees, approximately two dozen positions have been eliminated.
Aggressive cost-cutting moves at Tribune’s CW affiliate WPIX — together with continued allegations of a harsh and unfriendly work environment — are taking their toll on morale at the Tribune-owned station. The latest move under News Director Bill Carey’s watch that unsettled staff came in the last several days, when the station shuttered the sports department, eliminated the sports director position and reassigned Lolita Lopez, the sports director, sources say.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Struggling entertainment site MySpace said Tuesday that it is cutting nearly half of its staff worldwide, or about 500 people, after an extensive revamp in October […]
The Granite independent in San Francisco has has cut 20% of its technical work force, including half with more than 20 years of service.
About a week after the November sweeps ended and three weeks before Christmas, The Granite Broadcasting ABC affiliate gave six employees their walking papers Friday. Gone are three photographers, an assignment editor, a newly-hired producer and a staffer for the station’s website.
