Vice Media Making Fresh Round of Layoffs After News Shows Not Renewed, Consolidates Operations to Two Divisions
09.11.2023 - 16:27
/ variety.com
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Vice Media Group is undertaking a new restructuring plan — and shedding more staff — in the wake of its bankruptcy and asset sale. The cutbacks and reorg were announced by co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala in a memo to employees of the Brooklyn-based media company Thursday.
A “number of Vice News shows have reached the end of their production cycle and have not been renewed with distributors as of yet,” the CEOs wrote in the memo. “As such, we will be winding down those productions and sadly this will have an impact on certain roles.” Prior to its bankruptcy filing earlier this year, Vice Media made layoffs in its news division and said it was ending “Vice News Tonight,” its award-winning nightly show on Vice TV that had previously aired on HBO.
In addition, Vice Media is consolidating its lines of business, going from five to two. Under the new structure, the company’s two business segments are: Publishing, News and Creative Services, comprising publishing teams across entertainment and news, as well as in-house creative agency Virtue and the company’s commercial group; and Studios, Television and Distribution, combining the Vice Studios Group (Vice Studios and Pulse Films), Vice News Films, Vice TV and distribution.
The layoffs will result in fewer than 100 job eliminations, per a source familiar with the situation. Vice Media currently has a bit over 1,000 staffers worldwide; at one point, it counted about 3,000 employees.
Vice Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, after months of struggling to pay its bills, and in July closed a $350 million sale to its lenders — a fire sale for the company that had once boasted a valuation of $5.7 billion. Following the
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