BuzzFeed News To Shut Down As Digital Media Company Cuts Workforce By 15%

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed’s revenue was down substantially in the first three months of 2023, dropping 27% in the period — and the company projected sales would be off as much as 29% for Q2. Given the decline, last month BuzzFeed announced it was shuttering its unprofitable BuzzFeed News division and laying off about 180 people across the organization, about 15% of its employee base. “We have reached an inflection point in digital media. Over the last few months, we have made significant strategic and organizational changes to position the business for long-term growth. Peretti continued, “By leaning into Creators and AI, I believe we can unlock new opportunities across our portfolio of trusted brands — including Tasty, First we Feast, Complex, HuffPost and BuzzFeed,” Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed founder and CEO, said in announcing the Q1 results.

As we finalize the integration of SHOWTIME and continue to transform our business for the future, we have set a great foundation for continued success by consolidating our group into two functions:This combination has resulted in an incredible track record of hits including “Yellowstone,” “1883,” “Tulsa King,” “South Park,” “The Challenge,” “Teen Wolf,” “1923,” “Drag Race,” “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Your Honor,” “George & Tammy” and “Yellowjackets” – which, taken together, drove record subscribers across Paramount+ and Showtime and helped Paramount+ lead the industry in new subscriber growth.However, despite this success in streaming, we continue to feel pressure from broader economic headwinds like many of our peers.  To address this, our senior leaders in coordination with HR have been working together over the past few months to determine the optimal organization for the current and future needs of our business.As a result, we have made the very hard but necessary decision to reduce our domestic team by approximately 25%.  This is a tough yet important strategic realignment of our group.  Through the elimination of some units and by streamlining others, we will be able to reduce costs and create a more effective approach to our business as we move forward.  Today we will notify employees whose positions are being impacted with leaders communicating the news directly to those teams/or individuals.  These meetings will be followed by individual 1:1s with our HR partners.I realize these decisions will be very hard for everyone, most of all, those who will be leaving.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Layoffs will be hitting 25% of employees across the Showtime, MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks groups in the U.S. Tuesday, following months of internal deliberations about integration amid Showtime’s rebranding into Paramount+ With Showtime. Additionally, MTV News — which was significantly affected by layoffs more than five years ago — will be shutting down. Other units, most of which are operations, will be shuttered as well. In a memo to staff, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks president Chris McCarthy said that, despite Paramount’s “success in streaming, we continue to feel pressure from broader economic headwinds like many of our peers,” and that “senior leaders in coordination with HR have been working together over the past few months to determine the optimal organization for the current and future needs of our business.”

In the latest wave of industry layoffs, the recently combined Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios as well as Paramount Media Networks, overseen by the division’s President and CEO Chris McCarthy, is reducing its domestic team by 25% today. McCarthy addressed the cuts, which he called a “very hard but necessary decision”, in a company memo. (You can read it in full below.)

Another TV shoot has been disrupted by striking writers, Michelle and Robert King’s supernatural drama for Paramount+ Evil, which has been filming its fourth season at Brooklyn Stages in Brooklyn.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor As the Writers Guild of America goes on strike, late-night television has been put on pause, including NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” which is on an indefinite hiatus. Multiple sources confirm to Variety that, in the unlikely event the strike is resolved in the coming weeks, “Succession” star Kieran Culkin is scheduled to take the stage at Studio 8H on May 13, with musical guest Labrinth, while “The White Lotus” star Jennifer Coolidge is set to close out “SNL’s” 48th season with Foo Fighters. This would have been Culkin’s second time hosting following his season 47 appearance. After being brilliantly imitated by “SNL” cast member Chloe Fineman, Coolidge would have made her long-awaited debut on the show.

Earlier this week, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) announced that Hollywood writers would go on strike.

EXCLUSIVE: Unstable, the Netflix comedy series starring Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe, is the latest show to have production hit by the writers strike.

King Charles' sister Princess Anne doesn't believe a "slimmed down" monarchy is a move the king should make. "Well, I think the ‘slimmed down’ was said in a day when there were a few more people around," the Princess Royal told CBC News in an interview that aired days before King Charles III's coronation. Princess Anne was seemingly referring to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, along with the loss of other senior royals in recent years.

Late-night shows will be shut down after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced they will strike.

Nightly talk shows including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, are set to go dark starting on Tuesday after writers agreed to strike.

Vice Media Group announced that it was streamlining its news division, including layoffs and the cancelation of its signature newscast, Vice News Tonight.

After country music star Morgan Wallen suddenly canceled his Sunday night performance at the Ole Miss stadium in Oxford, Mississippi, his music label is debunking rumors behind the cancelation.  Leaving thousands of fans disappointed, Wallen shared a statement to his fans through his Instagram story that he could not perform due to his strained voice.  However, a viral TikTok video suggested otherwise. A security guard at the venue claimed Wallen was too drunk for his performance and said his reason for losing his voice was "bull crap." He added that an ambulance picked up the "Last Night" singer.

Bam Margera‘s friends have been very worried about him — and earlier this month, they tried to get him help.

Pep Guardiola said he had no excitement for a potential Treble as he refused to discuss the prospect of Manchester City winning everything.

Thania Garcia Mandolin, a live-stream concert platform that thrived after COVID-19 put a pause on in-person experiences, quietly closed its doors on Monday amid the resurgence of live touring and concerts. Mandolin launched on June 1, 2020, months into the pandemic, and less than a year later was named the best streaming platform at the 2021 Pollstar Awards (they were nominated with other platforms including Veeps, LiveXLive and Nugs.net). Around this same time last year, Mandolin was testing different ways to keep the concert streaming boom going by launching a variety of initiatives aimed at maximizing the in-person concert experience with a wide range of digital services. Among them were ticket sales to meet-and-greet or after-party add-ons to shows, ordering food and merch online without waiting in line, and replays of shows that were filmed live. The mobile app experience was employed for numerous live concerts including the 2021 Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Lil Wayne’s Uproar Hip-Hop Festival.

tweeted Philip Lewis, senior editor at Huffington Post, a subsidiary of Buzzfeed. Lewis’ response is just one of the slew of reactions from journalists. Horrible: BuzzFeed News is shutting downThe Pulitzer Prize-winning digital news site is well-known for its hard-hitting news coverage and investigative reporting. Peretti made the announcement via a staff memo that the news vertical of BuzzFeed Inc.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday. The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people, across BuzzFeed News and other divisions. Going forward, BuzzFeed will concentrate its news efforts in a single profitable news organization — HuffPost, which it acquired from Verizon in 2020, per Peretti’s memo. The company’s flagship BuzzFeed.com site will remain in place. “While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we’ve determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization,” Peretti wrote.

posted online by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin. He said the company can “no longer afford to fund” the news section as a standalone organization amid declining readership.The shutdown will shift the company’s news efforts to HuffPost, which it bought in 2021.

Latto has denied rumours that she photoshopped a bigger crowd into an image from Coachella set this year, sharing photos and videos as proof.The ‘Big Energy’ rapper performed at the festival for the second consecutive year on the closing Sunday (April 16) of weekend one.