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WarnerMedia slates overhaul that will likely result in thousands of job cuts, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. There was a previous round of cuts in August, which sliced more than 500 positions at Warner Bros. The new cuts, which are part of a drive by the company to reduce its costs by up to 20 percent, will also affect such TV channels as HBO, TBS and TNT. The moves come as WarnerMedia tries to shift its focus toward subscription streaming video through HBO Max, a competitor to Netflix, which has seen a slow start. The app drew 4.1 million subscribers in its first month, while Disney+, which launched in November, has more than 60 million paying customers.
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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is also getting ready to hand out a sizeable number of pink slips. The Hollywood Reporter says that Canada’s public broadcaster is set to cut 130 jobs as part of a "resizing." While the CBC said a number of positions will be eliminated through "attrition, collapsed vacancies and retirement," around 40 jobs, mostly based in Toronto, would be cut. The cost-cutting will fall on unionized members associated with the Canadian Media Guild and the Association of Professionals and Supervisors union. In an internal email obtained by THR, CBC vice president of English services Barb Williams said that the job cuts were the result of falling advertising and subscription revenues, made worse by the COVID-19 crisis.
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| Dean Baquet |
New York Times editor Dean Baquet may be heading back to the Los Angeles Times, where he served as editor before a clash with the Tribune Company (which then owned the paper) led to his departure in 2006. The New York Post reports that Baquet is at the top of the list of contenders to replace Norman Pearlstine, who is stepping down after two years as LA Times executive editor. In 2018, Baquet turned down a request to return to the paper from owner Patrick Soon Shiong, who purchased it from Tribune for $500 million. The New York Times has a mandatory retirement age of 65, and Baquet turned 64 in September.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
