Maybe it hasn't worked so well to mesh the short-video-clip culture of the Web with traditional cable news: Current Media, the edgy cable company co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, announced Wednesday it has laid off 80 employees in conjunction with a programming shakeup.
According to a release from the company, this shift involves canceling a number of programs, including "Current Tonight," "Current Takeover" and "Current Exposed." Most of the layoffs are in conjunction with those programs.
Additionally, per Wednesday's release: "Current will be shifting away from short-form programming and daily in-house production and towards proven 30-60 minute formats from a multitude of sources, including acquisitions, co-productions, outside studios, as well as Current developed and produced content." So it sounds like there will be a significant amount of new focus on outsourced material rather than more expensive in-house production--and perhaps less of an attempt to compete with well-established, live cable news networks.
Exactly one year ago, Current--headquartered in San Francisco but with many of its production operations in Los Angeles--laid off about 60 people but said that it was also creating about 30 new positions, which left its head count around 410 employees. Current chief operating officer Joanna Drake Earl told CNET News that this year's cuts leave its employee numbers at around 300.
The release said that the cuts were "not the result of a need to cut costs" and that the company would be hiring in areas like talent management, licensing, marketing, and ad sales. It'll also be consolidating its two L.A. facilities into a single new one.
"We've been an extremely innovative company doing lots and lots of different things," Earl said, "but (we've had to ask) what are we doing for our audience, and what shouldn't we be doing."
The company had filed for a $100 million IPO about two years ago but then retracted it amid concerns about the economy. It's repeatedly had to deflect rumors about its viability, like a report early this year that it would be closing its San Francisco headquarters to focus on L.A.
This post was updated at 2:10 p.m. PT with comment from Current's COO.
Amid economic woes, stagnant growth, and a management shakeup, onetime social-networking pioneer MySpace has announced that it has cut its head count by slightly under 30 percent in what the company calls a "return to start-up culture." Well, that's a nice way to put it.
Reports had circulated that MySpace would be laying off nearly half its employees in a move that had delayed its relocation to a bigger office space in the Los Angeles area. With the layoffs, MySpace's full-time U.S. employee roster will be down to 1,000 people--which means somewhere just south of 500 jobs were cut.
MySpace said that the layoffs are evenly distributed across all U.S. divisions of the company. Since MySpace also operates a number of offices overseas, it's not yet clear how they were affected (if at all), and representatives declined comment as to whether international offices would be affected down the road. CNET News has heard rumors that there may be consolidation in some of MySpace's European offices, something that the company did late last year when it merged its Amsterdam and Berlin offices.
"Today the domestic restructure is the only info we can share," a MySpace representative said in a phone call Tuesday.
Owen Van Natta, CEO of the News Corp.-owned social site, said in a release: "Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company. I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product."
Van Natta, the former chief operating officer at Facebook, was hired as CEO of MySpace late in April after a short stint at the head of start-up Project Playlist. Former CEO Chris DeWolfe had stepped down earlier that month, reportedly at the behest of Jonathan Miller, the new digital czar at News Corp. Executive shakeups at MySpace had been happening sporadically for nearly a year at that point.
MySpace's new executive lineup gives it solid entertainment street cred: Van Natta was joined by former MTV digital exec Jason Hirschhorn and former AOLer Michael Jones. Late last year, another MTV digital-media executive, Courtney Holt, joined MySpace as the head of its new MySpace Music division.
A source with knowledge of the situation said that senior management was spared Tuesday's cuts.
Launching MySpace Music, which focuses on free streaming music supported by advertising, was a return to the company's roots: once a hub for indie band promotion and community, MySpace had grown massive before Facebook began to catch up to it in international and then U.S. traffic. Partnerships with the likes of Google and a prominent endorsement of the OpenSocial developer initiative didn't help it regain traction as a networking destination.
Holt told CNET News in March that MySpace Music's traffic was "huge." But record label executives--who are partners in the MySpace Music joint venture--reported dissatisfaction with the revenue it was generating.
Last update at 11:56 a.m. PT.
The ax has fallen at Federated Media Publishing, the online advertising company founded by former journalist John Battelle. Seven of the company's 90 employees were laid off Friday.
The layoffs, according to a company representative, were almost exclusively on the display-advertising side of the company. Federated also creates interactive marketing campaigns, and with the display ad downturn in full effect, that's where the company has chosen to focus. Federated doesn't plan to ignore display advertising, but hope to make several hires on the marketing side.
"Given our journalistic heritage, we don't want to bury the lede: Today FM is restructuring parts of our business, and as a result, we are saying goodbye to a small number of our employees," a post by Battelle on the company blog read. "Also as a result, we are adding several positions in strategic areas where we see growth in the coming year."
In April, Federated Media raised a $50 million investment round led by Oak Venture Partners. The company serves ads on many of the Web's most popular blogs, like Boing Boing and TechCrunch, but it's had some high-profile losses over the past few years. In 2007, the company lost its display ad contract for aggregator Digg to Microsoft (though it still handles sponsorships), and tech blog network GigaOM left Federated Media for IDG last year.
Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices.
A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees--20 out of 28--had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company.
"LiveJournal Inc.'s headquarters, technical operations (and servers), legal, administration, and the customer service teams will remain in the United States," the release explained. "LiveJournal's global product development and design will now be coordinated out of its Moscow office. The pooling of resources between the U.S. and Russia will allow the company to build a stronger business model, well positioned to guarantee the long-term success of LiveJournal."
Yahoo veteran Matthew Berardo, who was hired as general manager of the service less than a year ago, was affected by the layoff.
LiveJournal was founded nearly a decade ago by OpenID creator Brad Fitzpatrick, who sold the company to blog software firm Six Apart. But that led to widespread reports of management difficulties, and late in 2007, Six Apart resold LiveJournal, phenomenally popular in Russia, to the Moscow-based software company SUP.
Media and music company RealNetworks started to conduct companywide layoffs on Thursday, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the events. One source said that employees were being notified over the course of the day in a series of meetings. RealNetworks PR representatives declined to comment on the matter.
About 130 of the approximately 1800 RealNetworks employees have been laid off, which comes out to just over seven percent, a source close to the company said. The cuts were spread across the company's departments and regional offices, the source added.
Earlier on Thursday, gossip blog Gawker had reported that the New York office of Rhapsody America, a joint venture between RealNetworks and Viacom's MTV Networks, was closing. RealNetworks denied this report. Viacom laid off seven percent of its workforce on Thursday.
A source at MTV Networks told CNET News that there were, however, still Rhapsody America layoffs. Employees were cut from the joint venture's office space at Viacom headquarters; many of them were former employees of Urge, the MTV digital music service that was folded into Rhapsody America when the joint venture launched.
Reports surfaced in May that RealNetworks planned to spin off its gaming unit into a separate company.
UPDATE (1:19 p.m. PT): RealNetworks confirmed the layoffs on its official blog and in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday afternoon: "On December 4, 2008, RealNetworks, Inc. notified or expects to notify about 130 employees, or approximately 7.5% of its worldwide employee base, of a reduction in headcount," the 8-K filing read. "(RealNetworks) reduced its employee base across most of its global facilities and functions and additionally eliminated about 30 contract personnel and consultants...eliminated the foregoing positions to reduce operating costs in light of slowing consumer and business spending due to the current economic downturn. Notwithstanding the reduction in force, the Company expects to achieve record revenue for full year 2008."
A report on PaidContent suggests that InterActiveCorp, the media conglomerate owned by Barry Diller, may be looking to sell off some of its smaller ad-supported content properties--effectively, tossing assets overboard to lighten the load during rough financial seas.
According to PaidContent, IAC may be "dissolving" its "programming" group, a set of ad-supported content businesses that includes CollegeHumor, 236.com (a joint venture with The Huffington Post), Very Short List, and the brand-new The Daily Beast. The restructuring reportedly involves the departure of Nick Lehman, chief operating officer of the programming group.
A CollegeHumor executive told CNET News in an e-mail that the comedy site would not be sold. IAC took a majority stake in its parent company, Connected Ventures, which also owns BustedTees and Vimeo, two years ago.
More likely? News comedy site 236 may become wholly owned by The Huffington Post, which just raised $25 million in funding. Very Short List, an e-mail newsletter, may also be up for sale.
IAC underwent a five-way split earlier this year as Diller, convinced that the unfocused nature of the conglomerate was keeping share prices down, spun off properties such as Ticketmaster and LendingTree in order to focus on online media businesses.
Update at 7:59 a.m. PST: A RealNetworks representative quashes a rumor about a RealNetworks-MTV joint venture.
The long-expected layoffs at Viacom, parent company of MTV Networks, have finally taken place.
According to an internal memo (first leaked to gossip blog Gawker), 850 positions have been cut. That amounts to 7 percent of the company's workforce.
"Our advantages and best efforts can't completely protect Viacom from the very serious and broad-based challenges of this economic recession," CEO Philippe Dauman wrote in the e-mail. "Viacom's long-term health will depend on our shared commitment to adapt, to innovate and to make difficult choices. To compete and thrive, we need to create an organization and a cost structure that are in step with the evolving economic environment."
A press release Thursday from Viacom gave a more detailed explanation: "The restructuring and write-down together will result in a pre-tax charge of $400 million to $450 million, or $0.42 to $0.48 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008. These staffing and compensation actions and write-downs are expected to result in pre-tax savings of $200 million to $250 million in 2009."
It's been common knowledge that Viacom layoffs were on the way, and the company had already canceled its big holiday parties this year, giving employees two extra vacation days in exchange.
In addition to MTV, Viacom owns BET Networks and Paramount Pictures. Its cable channels include Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, VH1, and Noggin.
According to a separate post on Gawker, the New York office for MTV-RealNetworks joint venture Rhapsody America is rumored to have closed, leaving 25 people jobless. RealNetworks spokesman Ryan Luckin said in an e-mail to me on Thursday that the rumor is false.
New York-based blog network Gawker Media continues to trim its staff after a big layoff round in October, MediaBistro reported Tuesday. A few more members of the editorial staff have been let go, and a few others have been downgraded to part-time employees.
"It's all part of the austerity plan we announced a month ago," Gawker Media founder Nick Denton said in an instant-message conversation. He added, "I don't make any apologies: we're going to need as big a cash pile as we can accumulate."
Denton has been particularly bearish on the fate of ad-supported media companies in the face of industrywide cutbacks, suggesting that online ad revenue may drop a full 40 percent and responding with fierce cost-cutting. Company revenue is strong--up 39 percent in November, Denton said--and traffic continues to grow. The company has a history of dealing with underperforming titles by simply selling them or shutting them down rather than letting them bleed cash. It's a strategy that has been called both ruthless and prudent.
In the scandal department (it's Gawker, after all): One of the employees MediaBistro reported was cut, Alex Carnevale, allegedly cribbed part of a blog post from his personal blog last week, if smaller media gossip blog Jossip is to be believed. Denton, however, said that wasn't part of the rationale behind his departure: Carnevale had been a temporary employee, serving one month on sci-fi blog IO9 and one on Gawker.
"He did some good stuff, and I'd like to try him out again," the company founder said.
Of more interest to the tech blogging world, Gawker recently slimmed down its Silicon Valley scandal title, Valleywag, opting to fold the brand into a column on Gawker.com instead.
A correction was made at 9:54 a.m. PT: ThisRecording is considered to be a personal blog that Alex Carnevale writes for with several other contributors, not an employer.
Producer/Editor Shaun Cvar and about a dozen other laid off CurrentTV employees gathered at a watering hole next door to Current's offices for drinks after being laid off.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)There have been layoffs at Current Media, the cable network co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
A statement from Current put the number of layoffs at about 60 positions, with 30 more to be refilled, the company said in a statement. That's less of a hard hit than the 20 percent cuts that a source close to Current hinted to CNET News on Tuesday. The statement read: "Approximately 60 positions have been eliminated in the company's three U.S. offices, and approximately 30 new positions created," the statement read. "Many of those whose positions were eliminated have been placed in the new positions. Current will have approximately 410 employees (after these staffing adjustments)."
The source also said additional layoffs would be coming in January, which a Current representative denied.
Current had announced less than a day ago that it had partnered with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to bring its network to Canada. Current's plans for an initial public offering are on hold, employees have told CNET News. The company filed for an IPO in January.
Approached outside the company's San Francisco headquarters, one laid-off Current employee said that she hadn't seen it coming.
"Not only was this uncalled for, but there was continuous deliberation during the last two or three months," the former employee said. "Every meeting we've had with the VP of our department has been a lot of 'Don't worry, your positions are secure.' And that has been repeated for the last two to three months."
Changes in programming format are on the way too. Current's focus on indie and amateur producers was a bold experiment, one that left some critics scratching their heads when the channel debuted in 2005.
VC^2 production assistant Parisa Vahdatinia, her layoff packet labeled "Top Secret," and her (former) office plant were at the nearest bars, Pete's Tavern, just hours after being laid off by media company CurrentTV.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)"As part of the impending transition at Current TV, one source says the company is going to drop its shorter (user-generated content) videos in favor of the more traditional 30-minute programs that have long dominated television programming across all channels," David Weir, an analyst at CNET News sister site BNET, reported on Monday night.
The statement from Current hinted at this change as well. "These changes result from the development of a new, innovative programming strategy built around eight cross-platform channels, including news, comedy, music, and technology, slated to premiere in the first quarter of 2009," the statement detailed. "Current's new programming strategy expands upon its pioneering use of viewer-created content to include additional opportunities for participation, creating a far more viewer-influenced network, and further unifies the company's online and TV platforms by having each Web channel paired with a companion TV show."
Current, which consists of the Current TV network and Current.com, had just gone through a high-profile marketing effort in conjunction with the 2008 presidential election, for which it partnered with trendy social-media brands Digg and Twitter.
Company representatives told CNET News last week that it had been a big success, and Gore himself later gave a speech at the Web 2.0 Summit in which he touched upon how he hopes Current will solve some of the problems plaguing the television news industry.
At least one Current employee, associate producer Andrew Schneider, has Twittered his departure. The company "just laid me off with a ton of my colleagues," Schneider wrote.
Schneider's LinekdIn profile says that he worked in VC2, the "Viewer Created" or user-generated content division of Current. A source told CNET News that the VC2 division was hit particularly hard by the layoffs.
The company statement said the layoffs were a preventative measure: "These changes enable Current Media to reduce its cost structure, thereby assuring that it will be comfortably profitable in 2009, regardless (of) the depth and length of the recession."
Laid off producer/editor Holly Gibson, in pink, talks with co-workers outside their offices after the San Francisco media company laid off 60 people Tuesday.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)Last update at 8:02 p.m. PT. CNET News' James Martin contributed to this article.
Revision3, the online-video production company started by Digg executives Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, is the latest company to go through a round of layoffs. A source close to Revision3 tells us that nine people have been let go, plus a tenth who will be retained as a freelancer. Before the layoffs, Revision3 had approximately 35 employees.
Not surprisingly, news of the layoffs is all over Twitter: the first report of it appears to have come from Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron. He said he had received an e-mail from Damon Berger, senior director of creative and business development at Revision3, who said he was one of those laid off.
Blog guru Leo Laporte twittered about the layoffs several minutes later.
Revision3 posted an explanation to its blog later on Monday morning: the shows Pixel Perfect, Pop Siren, and Internet Superstar have been discontinued. The post did not say anything about how many layoffs there have been, though.
The start-up has also dropped its licensing deal with popular Web shows Epic Fu and Wine Library.
"About a week ago Revision3 let us know that despite a year of record revenue and viewership, they are feeling the effects of the economic crunch and need to make some urgent and tough decisions," a post on Epic Fu's production company's blog read. "As of the end of 2008, Revision3 will no longer be the Web licensing partner for Epic Fu, and we'll be leaving their network of shows. We wish Revision3 luck in the coming months and remain a fan and supporter of their shows."
In light of the economic downturn and the end of its Revision3 contract, Epic Fu production company Smashface has opted to make some layoffs as well, letting three employees go.
The San Francisco-based Revision3 has enjoyed most of its popularity among the Twitter-friendly geek set, signing deals with blogger personalities like wine critic Gary Vaynerchuk and former CNETer Veronica Belmont.
Lifestyle programming director Sarah Lane, a Revision3 mainstay, wrote on her blog on Monday afternoon that she had been laid off as well.
UPDATE: We have heard from a source close to Revision3 that in addition to Lane and Berger, Revision3 has laid off director of comedy programming and Internet Superstar host Martin Sargent and six others. Diggnation producer Glenn McElhose has been laid off as well, but will remain at Revision3 as a freelancer.
Last updated at 3:04 p.m. PDT.
