The media industry's current round of cuts and consolidation is accelerating. Sizable layoffs at Buzzfeed, Gannett and Verizon Media (home of AOL, Yahoo, HuffPost and others) were announced Wednesday, totaling over 1,000 jobs cut.
Why it matters: If the headlines signal anything, it's that the news media will continue to struggle to find a sustainable business model in an advertising and attention ecosystem dominated by tech companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix.
By the numbers:
- Verizon Media will cut roughly 800 jobs, or 7% of its global workforce across the organization, as well as certain brands and products. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told Axios earlier this month that each of the company's three units, including the media business, needed to be able to stand on their own. (A company spokesperson later clarified to Axios that Verizon Media Group will still have access to Verizon customer data when customers opt in to provide such information.)
- Buzzfeed will cut roughly 250 jobs, or roughly 15% of its workforce, including jobs within its news division.
- Gannett cut over 20 jobs Wednesday, per Poynter, with more expected as the company tries to shed costs amid buyout talks.
[...] Bottom line: Many news companies are struggling to find sustainable business models in the digital era. There's no sign it's getting any easier.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @09:35AM
This used to be true, but thanks to companies like the ones mentioned in TFA stuff of actual value tends to get burried underneath mountains of manure, and becomes ever more difficult to find the larger the mountain of manure becomes. Quality is actually punished in the current climate because it requires a much larger time and energy investment than simply copy/pasting and exaggerating rumors your "journalists" cherrypick from social media/blogs. But... It also produces a nice feedback loop where everything is now recycled to the nth degree and eventually goes full circle. I've caught site like these recycle their own material from 5-6 years back, presumably without being aware of doing so. And as with all things that spiral out of control like that, even low quality manure is diminishing in quality as a result. And that's presumably why their bottom line is bleeding now. Quality isn't trumping manure, manure is drowing in itself (alongside quality).