Audible Lays Off Over 100 Employees, About 5% of Workforce, Amid Broader Amazon Cutbacks

Ellise Shafer Britney Spears is all for Justin Timberlake‘s musical comeback, despite what her fans may think. In a Sunday night post on her Instagram (which is now private), Spears praised Timberlake’s new song, “Selfish,” while also apologizing for “some of the things” she wrote in her memoir, “The Woman in Me.” “I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book. If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry,” Spears wrote alongside a video of Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon performing the song on the host’s “Classroom Instruments” segment.

Sophia Bush and ex Grant Hughes are still finessing the details of their split, and they are not on common ground regarding their assets just yet.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata.Iwata was president of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015 and oversaw both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.However, he was also CEO during the turbulent Wii U era of Nintendo, which was considered a flop by many. Following the failure, he took a 50 per cent pay cut while other executives reduced their salaries by 20 per cent.Speaking about the decision in 2013, Iwata said: “If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease.

The Obie Awards, the venerable honors for outstanding Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions, is doing away with its annual ceremony and will instead use the funds to provide winners with grants ranging from $1,000-$5,000.

Microsoft is laying off about 1,900 people in its gaming division following the closing of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Callum Turner‘s love life is taking center stage amid rumors linking him to pop superstar Dua Lipa.

open letter from the Strike Germany movement, which called for a boycott of state-funded cultural events, claiming that the “use of McCarthyist policies” suppressed “freedom of expression” in relation to displays of solidarity with Palestine and criticism of the Israeli state.The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism cites examples including “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”.Strike Germany claimed that the IHRA definition was “increasingly becoming official state policy, effectively censoring criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionist perspectives from the German cultural sphere, furthering a dangerous false equivalency that ultimately harms the fight against anti-Semitism”.A post shared by STRIKE GERMANY (@strikegermany)As of Monday (January 22), however, the clause has been dropped. “I must take the legal and critical voices that saw this clause as a restriction on the freedom of art seriously,” said Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, in a statement (via The Art Newspaper).

UPDATE: The layoffs of more than 20% of the Los Angeles Times newsroom elicited sharp criticism from the guild, saying that it was handled in a “brutal and inhumane way.”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it is laying off 115 staffers, as billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong looks to stem losses that have grown to $30-$40 million a year. The layoff figure includes both union members and non-union managers. Matt Pearce, a Times reporter and president of Media Guild West, said on X that 94 union staffers were being let go, which he said was “devastating” but less than the number expected a week ago.

The tech sector’s tough times continue. Riot Games, the video game developer behind the popular League of Legends and Arcane, the Netflix series on which it is based, is laying off about 530 staffers worldwide in a move its CEO described as a “decision [that] is critical for the future of Riot.”

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+‘s Kids operations underwent layoffs today. The cuts impacted eight people across music, production, development, a fraction of the overall staff involved in kids content, Deadline has learned.

So, here we are in mid-January, and though we’re staring down the barrel of a tough year ahead, it’s not all wintry doom and gloom on an international box office (and combined global) level. 

Anna Wintour kept her trademark dark sunglasses on even as she was delivering bad news to Pitchfork staffers, one writer that was part of the purge complains.

YouTube is the latest tech division to feel the layoff pain. The company will eliminate 100 employees, a spokesperson confirmed todayto TechCrunch.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube is laying off about 100 employees and is restructuring some of its operations. The cuts at the internet video giant were announced in a memo to staffers Wednesday from Mary Ellen Coe, YouTube’s chief business officer. The roughly 100 jobs eliminated represent about 1.4% of YouTube’s nearly 7,200 headcount.

Alister Jack has confirmed the UK Government is seeking legal costs from the Scottish Government over its botched gender reform legal challenge.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music After weeks of rumors, Universal Music Group has confirmed that it will be laying off an unspecified but significant number of employees in the coming weeks. The company’s recorded-music division is said to be receiving the brunt of the layoffs.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amazon is laying off “several hundred” employees at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “This is a difficult decision to make and one that my leadership team and I do not take lightly,” the company’s entertainment chief Mike Hopkins wrote in an email to staff Wednesday.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s box office revenue rose in 2023 to €495 million ($542,000) while the country’s admissions tally reached 70.5 million, representing a roughly 60% increase compared with 2022. Though Italian moviegoing figures – announced Wednesday in Rome by national box office compiler Cinetel – mark a substantial leap forward, they are still down roughly 23% compared with the country’s average box office intake during the period between 2017 and 2019. Prior to the pandemic, the benchmark of a good year was considered 100 million admissions.

A rapper and influencer "trivialised" her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery in a series of social media posts, a watchdog has ruled.