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Paramount Global, in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth,” has announced plans to shed about 3 percent of its 24,500 employees, amounting to what the Hollywood Reporter says will be about 800 eliminated positions. The cuts follow a year of corporate reorganization that has seen the company merge its Showtime and Paramount+ services and shut down MTV News. It also comes on the heels of widespread speculation that Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements (which controls Paramount Global) is planning to sell either all or part of the company. There was good news this past weekend for the company, however: Super Bowl LVIII (which was presented on its platforms CBS, Nickelodeon and Paramount+) raked in a record 123 million viewers.
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| Noah Shachtman |
Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month. His departure is due to disagreements with the magazine’s chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction it is taking. In a note to staff, Wenner said that deputy editor Sean Woods and digital director Lisa Tozzi would be taking over day-to-day editorial leadership of Rolling Stone until a new editor is named. Shachtman said he would continue to be a contributing writer for the magazine. Before taking over at Rolling Stone in 2021, he was editor of The Daily Beast.
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The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023, partly the result of 300,000 new paid digital subscribers in Q4, the Times Company said on Feb. 7. In the last three months of the year, the Times reported $676.2 million in total revenue, which was essentially flat with 2022. However, operating profit spiked 8.5 percent, hitting $154 million. Things were even looking up—relatively—at The Athletic, the company’s sports vertical. Though it posted a $4.4 million operating loss, that’s a significant drop from the year-earlier figure of $9.6 million and comes on the heels of a 31.3 percent jump in revenue, to $38.5 million. The Times also appears to be well on the way to hitting its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027, with 10.36 million subscribers at the end of last year. But it looks quite unlikely that the company will be able to close that gap with print subscribers. There were 730,000 of them at the end of 2022—a number that dipped to 660,000 by the end of 2023.
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| Dale R. Anglin |
Press Forward, a coalition of funders that is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news and scale infrastructure the sector needs to thrive, names Dale R. Anglin as its inaugural director. Anglin comes to Press Forward from the Cleveland Foundation, where she has served as VP for proactive grantmaking, leading the effort to invest in a regional network of nonprofit journalism initiatives, including the creation of Documenters Cleveland and Signal, the nonprofit newsroom of Cleveland and Ohio. “Dale’s deep experience in leading funder collaboratives, centering equity, and growing nonprofit journalism initiatives will serve this coalition well as we continue to build a movement for local news,” said John Palfrey, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a Press Forward coalition member.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida is exiting, effective Jan. 11... News Corp brings on Arthur Bochner, who most recently served as VP, strategic communications at the Walt Disney Company, as chief communications officer and EVP following the retirement later this year of Jim Kennedy... Hearst Magazines names Lindsay Horrigan SVP, consumer growth officer, a new position at the company. 
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