Layoffs are hitting media and entertainment companies from Gawker to NBCUniversal to the Washington Post — here are 25 that have cut staff
AMC Networks, the parent company of the cable network behind "The Walking Dead," "Mad Men," and "Breaking Bad," is laying off 20% of its 1,000 American staffers, or about 200 people, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Its CEO, Christina Spade, the former AMC CFO who was in the top position for just three months, is also exiting and is entitled to a cash severance payout of at least $10.5 million.
"It was our belief that cord-cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case," AMC company chairman James Dolan wrote in a note to network staffers in late November, the Journal reported. AMC Networks subsidiaries also include IFC, Sundance TV, and streaming services AMC+, Shudder, and Acorn TV.
Bustle Digital Group — the parent company of Bustle, W, Inverse, Romper, and other media sites and publications — announced at the start of February that it would be cutting 8% of its full-time roles and "suspending" operations at Gawker, the irreverent pop culture site that had been revived by BDG in 2021 after a lawsuit forced it to shutter in 2016.
"After experiencing a financially strong 2022, we have found ourselves facing a surprisingly difficult Q1 of 2023," wrote BDG CEO Bryan Goldberg in an email to staff. "BDG has made the decision to reprioritize some of our investments that better position the Company for the direction we see the industry moving."
The Writers Guild of America, East told The Hollywood Reporter that about 40 full-time staffers at BDG (including eight Gawker staffers), in addition to part-time workers, were impacted by the layoffs.
BuzzFeed on December 6 laid off 12% of staff or 180 people, citing challenging economic conditions, opportunities to consolidate following its 2021 acquisition of Complex Networks, and a lag in monetizing the audience's shift to vertical video. The cuts focused on BuzzFeed and Complex, not HuffPost or BuzzFeed News, which had staff reductions in 2021 and earlier in 2022, respectively. "It's grim watching this happen to this company people really care about," one staffer told Insider.
BuzzFeed went public via a SPAC in late 2021 and its life as a public company has been rocky. Its stock price has plunged to below $1 and its first earnings call was marked by cuts to its workforce, a call for voluntary buyouts in its vaunted but money-losing news division, and the exit of three top editors. Looking ahead, the company said it was working to boost growth by ramping up its vertical video output and focusing on creator-driven content that has advertiser appeal.
Satellite player DirecTV said in a staff memo that it's laying off 10% of its 10,000-member workforce, CNBC reported. The consolidation includes hundreds of managerial executives at the El Segundo, California, company.
The company said in a statement that "the entire pay-TV industry is impacted by the secular decline and the increasing rates to secure and distribute programming." Viewers are dumping expensive long contracts for movies and TV shows in favor of direct-to-consumer relationships with streaming ventures such as Netflix.
The change is partly a result of the loss of "NFL Sunday Ticket," which is moving to YouTube. DirecTV is backed by AT&T and private equity giant TPG.
IAC-owned Dotdash Meredith, the parent company of People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, and other lifestyle magazines and online properties, let go of 274 staffers, or 7%, of its workforce in late January. Roles cut included editors, writers, marketers, and production managers.
"As we have said, we are not immune to the broader challenges of the ad industry and of the economy as a whole, and today's actions are a direct response to these realities," wrote CEO Neil Vogel in a memo to staff. He noted that the company, like others "in our space" during the pandemic, has "grown aggressively." It has also faced challenges combining its online and print businesses in the wake of the $2.7 billion merger in 2022.
"With the difficult market environment and economic uncertainty that lie ahead, we must prioritize our biggest opportunities and make sure we have the proper cost structure in place to pursue them," he continued. "Today's actions provide for the most effective and focused use of our resources and put us in a position of strength as we look toward the future."
Layoffs came on January 11 to Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, and others, with one knowledgeable source saying cuts would affect less than 2% of staff. IAPE, the union that represents Dow Jones employees, said the layoffs appear to be global, with employees in offices outside the US, including London and Barcelona, getting invitations to layoff meetings.
Media giant Gannett has spent the last few months making deep cuts to its fleet of newspapers, which includes flagship title USA Today as well as regional papers like The Indianapolis Star.
In August, the company cut 400 people and said it would not fill hundreds of open roles. Then in December, Gannett said it was cutting about 6% of its roughly 3,440-person media unit, or about 200 staffers. That news followed an announcement from Gannett CEO Mike Reed in October mandating unpaid leave as well as voluntary buyouts.
Gannett has been under pressure as it tries to shift its business from print to digital, but the crunch in the ad market has hit the publicly-traded newspaper company hard. Its stock fell more than 60 percent in 2022.
Digital media publisher G/O, which comprises 11 brands, laid off 11 people — or about 3% of its staff — in December. G/O formed in 2019 when private equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired the former Gawker Media sites including Gizmodo, Jezebel, and Kotaku. This past summer, G/O also acquired the business news site Quartz.
CEO Jim Spanfeller wrote in a memo to staff, reviewed by Insider, that the layoffs were spread across the company's legacy and newer properties and were meant to eliminate redundancies in roles following the Quartz acquisition. "In no way is this a reflection on these people or their talents and abilities. It is simply a reflection of the final stages of incorporating a new business with some amount of acceleration due to the economic headwinds every company is currently facing," he wrote.
In early January, Variety reported the hiring of Merrill Brown as G/O's editorial director, a role that had been open for a year and a half.
The toymaker announced it would be cutting 1,000 full-time roles in 2023, given that its consumer products business "underperformed in the fourth quarter against the backdrop of a challenging holiday consumer environment," according to a statement from Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks.
The maker of Nerf, Play-Doh, and Peppa Pig toys said that some areas, such as digital gaming and licensing, had shown "strong growth" in the fourth quarter, but 2022 overall had offered "a challenging moment." Hasbro said it would stick to a strategy it had outlined in October 2022 "focus on fewer, bigger brands; gaming; digital; and our rapidly growing direct-to-consumer and licensing businesses."
Hasbro is also planning to sell studio Entertainment One (eOne) after acquiring the "Peppa Pig" and "Transformers" parent less than three years ago, though Hasbro aims to retain IP such as "Peppa Pig."
Morning Brew, a millennial-focused media company that was acquired by Insider Inc. in 2020, laid off 14% of its staff of about 300 in November.
Cofounder and CEO Austin Rief wrote in an email to staff that "a lot of fear and uncertainty" is scaring marketers, and that Morning Brew has felt the effects of the ad environment. Those impacted included Daniel Bentley, a managing editor overseeing two newsletters at Morning Brew, "Sidekick" and "Money Scoop;" reporter Katie Canales, who had joined Morning Brew from Insider; reporter Sherry Qin; executive producer Brian Henry; and senior editor Stassa Edwards.
NBCUniversal started laying off ad salespeople in January after the company executed a buyout program across divisions offering early retirement to older employees.
The Comcast-owned giant was looking to keep costs under control in 2022, resulting in a cull that had impacted NBC Sports, E! Entertainment as well as NBC Group but was expected to hit much wider in January, according to senior insiders at the company. Bloomberg has reported that Comcast is looking for a billion dollars in cuts across the Philadelphia-based cable-to-satellite player.
Once a high-flying rocket ship, Netflix saw its wings clipped in 2022 as the dominant streaming platform clocked subscriber losses and a subsequent hit to its share price. In the spring, the company slashed 450 full-time positions, then cut around 30 animation jobs and 70 animation contract roles.
The moves shook Netflix insiders, who noted a shift to "fear-based" decision-making among executives who were stretched thin. The streamer's subscriber figures have since rebounded, and the company is hiring in targeted areas such as gaming.
Outside Media, the enthusiast publisher of titles including Backpacker, Ski, and Climbing laid off 12% of its staff in November, mainly in content and journalism roles. Founder and CEO Robin Thurston cited slowing consumer appetite and a softening digital ad market. Thurston also conceded that the company expanded too rapidly during the pandemic when it went on a shopping spree to capitalize on people's growing interest in the outdoors, and that some of the titles it bought were "extremely challenged." Outside previously laid off 15% of staff in May.
Paramount Global, under CEO Bob Bakish, has been trying to figure out how to integrate its premium cable offering, Showtime, with streamer Paramount+ and make savings at the same time. In November, Paramount axed fewer than 100 positions, largely in advertising sales, according to Deadline.
Former Politico owner Robert Allbritton launched tech-focused web publication Protocol in early 2020, with the goal of making it the "ESPN of technology." But the outlet shuttered just two short years later and laid off a staff of more than 60 people amid a downturn in the industry that it covered, as Amazon, Meta and others also are letting go of thousands of staffers.
"I expected layoffs because of the economy, but the full shutdown was a surprise," one impacted staffer told Insider in November, shortly after the layoffs. Protocol faced steep competition from the likes of Wired and The Verge, and insiders said there was a sense that business had begun to slow in the second half of 2022.
Allbritton in 2021 sold Politico — and Protocol along with it — to Axel Springer, the parent company of Insider.
Recurrent Ventures was once a bright spot in the digital media industry, a new kid on the block buying up legacy media brands like Popular Science as well as digital standouts like MEL Magazine.
But in September, the private-equity-backed media company announced a round of layoffs, Insider first reported. Shortly thereafter, Recurrent's CEO and chief revenue officer both stepped aside. Alex Vargas, who joined the company in April as COO, stepped up as CEO in October.
The round of cuts — 52 people in total — followed Recurrent's decision in July to shutter MEL, the beloved men's lifestyle publication that it once hoped would be the backbone of a growing lifestyle division.
The company, which grew aggressively as it charted an acquisition-heavy strategy, cited market forces when it announced the layoffs. As Insider reported, disorganization in the ad sales department and an unclear strategy also led to low morale and a struggling business. Now, however, the company is ready to use its $300 million war chest — backed by private-equity giant Blackstone — to make more media deals in 2023.
After high hopes of expansion in 2022, Roku appeared to pause aspirations and ended the year making cuts. The company said that economic conditions meant that it would cut 200 of its 3,000 employees. CEO Anthony Wood, speaking on the company's third-quarter earnings call, said the 2022 holiday period was an unusual one in that advertiser that typically spent with the company were not spending with anyone.
SmartNews, a venture-backed news aggregation site and app valued at $2 billion as of 2021, in January, announced a 40% reduction of its US and China workforce or around 120 people, TechCrunch reported. TechCrunch said the impacted roles included people in engineering, product, and data science. The company confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch.
Founded in 2012, Tokyo-based SmartNews raised $230 million in 2021, bringing its total raised to $400 million.
Spotify said Jan. 23 it planned to reduce headcount by around 6%, or about 600 employees across the company, citing the challenging economy.
Cofounder and CEO Daniel Ek said the music-streaming service had tried to rein in costs over the past few months but that it wasn't enough. He also said he tried to "sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic" but was "too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth."
Along with the layoffs, Dawn Ostroff, chief content and advertising business officer, will leave the company. Alex Norström, chief freemium business officer, will take on oversight of content, advertising, and licensing work.
TheSkimm, the popular newsletter publisher and digital media company, laid off nearly 10% of its workforce — or 17 staffers — in mid-January, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Founded by Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg in 2012, New York-based TheSkimm first captured the attention of readers with its newsletter, the Daily Skimm, which caters to millennial women. The company describes itself as being "dedicated to succinctly giving women the information they need to make confident decisions."
TheSkimm last engaged in a major round of layoffs in the spring of 2020, just a few months into the start of the pandemic, axing about 20% of its 130-person staff. Zakin and Weisberg told staffers at the time, shortly before the layoffs, that the economic downturn had sent ad proposals plummeting 75%.
Vice Media quietly trimmed staff in 2022 as it faced a softening advertising environment and sale speculation, though talks with Greek broadcaster Antenna group have stalled, the Wall Street Journal reported. Vice is expected to miss its 2022 revenue target by about $100 million, according to the Journal, which will likely depress the $1.5 billion valuation it's seeking from a buyer.
In October, Vice laid off a handful of staffers at its games and tech verticals, Waypoint and Motherboard. In November, it laid off about a dozen editorial staffers out of a few hundred following an editorial reorg. Next came news of cuts at its food vertical Munchies and music destination Noisey. CEO Nancy Dubuc warned of more reductions, emailing in November that the company would look to reduce staff by 15%, citing ongoing cutbacks by brands and advertisers.
The once high-flying digital darling cofounded in 1994 by Shane Smith was valued at $5.7 billion at its 2017 peak but has struggled under the weight of massive debt payments to private equity giant TPG. CNBC reported in May that Vice hired bankers to explore a sale of all or parts of the company.
Vimeo conducted a round of layoffs that will impact 11% of its workforce, CEO Anjali Sud wrote in a January 4 email to staff.
"This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply," Sud wrote. "It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company, operating with the necessary discipline in an uncertain economic environment."
Vimeo went public in May 2021 after spinning off from IAC. Its main business is a software as a service that helps regular people create and distribute video content; it's been shifting its focus to serve big corporate clients like Gap, Nike, and Expedia and away from its role as a YouTube alternative.
The layoff follows a 6% trim in the workforce in July 2022.
Venture-backed digital media company Vox Media on January 20 laid off 7% of staff, or about 130 people, according to reports.
The publisher of New York magazine, The Verge, and other publications said it had already reduced spending and frozen hiring. CEO Jim Bankoff said the layoffs would affect revenue, editorial, operations, and core services. Vox laid off 39 people in 2022, Axios reported.
The Washington Post is laying off 20 people out of its 2,500-person workforce and not filling 30 vacancies, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said in a memo to staff. The paper is also phasing out Launcher, its online gaming vertical, and KidsPost.
The Post said its net headcount would remain unchanged as it continues to hire in other areas.
The January news followed the Post's announcement in November that it would shutter its standalone print Sunday magazine and eliminate its 10 staff positions.
Buzbee told staffers at the time that the move was part of the paper's "global and digital transformation" and that the Post "will be shifting some of the most popular content, and adding more, in a revitalized Style section that will launch in the coming months," the Post reported.
Perhaps no entertainment company has undergone as much corporate turmoil in 2022 as Warner Bros. Discovery, which is still digesting a megamerger that has combined WarnerMedia's HBO, HBO Max, CNN, and DC with Discovery's HGTV, Food Network, and other cable networks.
As CEO David Zaslav looks for at least $3 billion in synergies, the company, which employs some 40,000 people worldwide, is shedding staff from nearly every major division. CNN has cut 400 positions including open job roles, on top of another 239 cuts following the short life of the news streaming platform CNN+. At Turner Sports and Bleacher Report, 70 people have lost their jobs, while WBD has axed 100 in ad sales as that division shrinks by 30% globally.
Even at crown jewel HBO, Zas trimmed headcount by 14%, or about 70 people, over the summer, scrapping HBO Max's original unscripted team and yanking a plethora of titles from the streaming platform.