Universal Music Group to Lay Off ‘Hundreds’ in First Quarter

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.

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

Store.TaylorSwift.com — which sells gifts, CDs and vinyl, as well as T-shirts and sweaters from her record-breaking Eras Tour — has been dogged with complaints on social media of goods that have arrived either late, or damaged, or not at all.The Post spoke with multiple customers who claim they waited months for goods from the site — which promises many items “ship in 1 week” — with little to no response from UMG’s customer service. Ditto for requests for a refund.Grace Green, a 32-year-old Swiftie living in Arizona who has been a fan since Swift’s debut album came out in 2006, placed orders for 22 items on the site last year, collectively totaling $1,044.75, she told The Post.Green defended the splurge as “a desperate, mad attempt to get everything at once,” noting that products across the site quickly sell out.

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.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Songwriter Jenna Andrews, whose hits include songs performed by BTS, Drake, David Guetta and more, has sold her catalog to Warner Chappell Music, her management company Milk & Honey Music + Sports has announced. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Mark Ronson will be honored with the Music for Life award and sit for an interview to open the National Association of Music Merchants show in Anaheim, Calif., next week, the organization has announced. The not-for-profit music trade organization will hold its annual gathering from Thursday, January 25 through Sunday, January 28.

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.

Universal Music Group is planning what may become hundreds of job cuts to its recorded music division in its first quarter, according to numerous reports.

Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced their plans for 2024, including job cuts and an “artist-centric” streaming model.A report by Bloomberg alleged that the company was planning to lay off hundreds of jobs within the first quarter. Anonymous sources claimed that the recorded music department would suffer the most cuts.

Tool have treated fans to a rare performance of ‘Flood’.The band have just started on their massive US Arena tour, where they played Madison Square Garden on Friday (January 12). It was here that they performed ‘Flood’, a track taken off their 1993 debut ‘Undertow’.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” has become the first song to pass the 4 billion stream mark on Spotify, a rep for the company confirms to Variety. The song passed Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” as the all-time most-streamed song on the service just over a year ago, and it is one of two Weeknd songs in the top 10: his 2016 song “Starboy” is at No.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast division, laid off about 5% of its employees, representing just over 100 staffers. The cutbacks come as other Amazon groups — including Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios and Twitch — this week are pink-slipping several hundred workers. Audible CEO Bob Carrigan informed employees of the cuts in an audio memo Thursday.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music As the ongoing series of lawsuits and allegations prove nearly every week, sexual misconduct and abuse remain a major problem in the music industry. In the coming weeks, songwriter Tiffany Red and the 100 Percenters, who have long rallied for more equitable treatment for songwriters in the industry, have spoken out against sexual abuse and have announced plans to launch two programs designed to combat it: the Safe Music Business Pledge and the Abuse in Music Recovery Fund.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Taylor Swift made up 1.7% of the entire U.S. recorded-music market in 2023, according to the year-end report from Luminate, the industry data partner formerly known as SoundScan. The news does not come as a surprise after a year in which Swift staged a world-beating global tour and was seemingly ubiquitous in nearly every form of media — the report estimates one in 78 on-demand audio streams in the U.S.