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Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Media and entertainment layoffs 2025: Disney and others are cutting staff, but job losses are lower so far this year
It's not just the tech industry that is facing layoffs in 2025. In recent weeks, a number of high-profile media and entertainment companies have seen job cuts. The most recent media giant to reportedly undergo layoffs is the Walt Disney Company. Here's what you need to know about the layoffs affecting the media industry right now. She worked at Subway for more than a decade—then found out her boss had been breaking labor laws the whole time 3 phrases no one should ever say in a negotiation 4 types of bosses, and how to work with each one The Walt Disney Company company is getting ready to let go of about 6% of its employees who work in the company's ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks units, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The layoffs will total about 200 employees and will reportedly be announced today. The move is being made to save costs on what used to be more profitable divisions but now aren't seen as important in the ongoing shift to streaming. Fast Company reached out to Disney for comment. As part of the move, ABC will reportedly merge 20/20 and Nightline into one unit, which will result in lost jobs. The news network is also reportedly shutting down the news site 538, which currently employs about 15 people. As for the Disney Entertainment Networks unit, WSJ says its scheduling and program planning units will see job cuts. American broadcaster E.W. Scripps will also reportedly lay off workers across its local TV stations, reports TheWrap. The company currently owns 61 stations across the country, and employees are said to have begun being notified about the job cuts yesterday. It is unknown exactly how many employees E.W. Scripps will be laying off, but the company is said to employ about 5,200 workers. 'We can confirm there were some position eliminations across about a dozen Scripps stations,' an E.W. Scripps spokesperson told Fast Company when reached for comment. 'The media industry is in a state of continued disruption and, while difficult, these changes are part of Scripps' ongoing commitment to adapt through this disruption and ensure we can continue providing our communities with essential services well into the future.' The reported E.W. Scripps layoffs come after another American broadcast company, Tegna Inc., which owns numerous NBC-affiliated stations, laid off its its VERIFY fact-checking team. As AdWeek reported, Tegna's fact-checking team included about 20 journalists and producers. It's not just broadcast jobs that are going in the media industry. Jobs at print media giants have also been lost in recent days, too. The Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker sent a memo (via TalkingBizNews) to employees on Tuesday that the paper would be creating a new Technology & Media group based in New York to oversee its tech coverage. However, Tucker said the 'changes do mean that some reporters and editors in San Francisco and New York will be leaving us.' Tucker did not say how many jobs would be lost. The Los Angeles Times will also see some journalists departing—but this is not due to layoffs. As noted by TheWrap, the newspaper's owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, has made buyout offers to over 40 newsroom staff. The buyout offer comes amid recent drama at the paper, including the pulling of the publication's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris late last year. According to data from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the media industry—which includes television, film, streaming, and news—lost 624 jobs in January. That was a jump of 27% over the 490 jobs the industry lost in December 2024. However, January 2025's job losses of 624 media jobs were down 41% from the 836 media jobs lost in January 2024. When it comes to just the news segment of the media industry—which includes digital, broadcast, and print—Challenger, Gray & Christmas says 192 layoffs occurred in January 2025, down 64% from the 528 cuts in January 2024. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter:
The Independent
06-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
ABC News staffers ‘crying and upset' amid sweeping layoffs that gutted GMA3 and shuttered FiveThirtyEight
FiveThirtyEight, the influential political data site first launched by stats guru Nate Silver in 2008, is being shut down amid sweeping layoffs being enacted by Disney across ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks, a source familiar with the matter told The Independent. Additionally, all three hours of programs branded under the news network's flagship morning talk show Good Morning America have been consolidated under one leader, GMA executive producer Simone Swink. Previously, the third hour — known as GMA3 — ran under a separate production team headed by executive producer Catherine McKenzie, who has been let go along with much of the GMA3 staff. The gutting of the third hour's staff — as well as other deep cuts across the newsroom — have left many ABC News employees shaken and concerned. 'It's a very somber scene in the building—people crying and upset,' a network staffer told Status News' Oliver Darcy. 'Lots of panicked phone calls between staffers trying to make sense of it.' The job cuts, which were announced to staff on Wednesday, will impact roughly 200 employees and represent about six percent of the total workforce across ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks. The majority of the layoffs are at ABC News, with most impacted employees based in New York. Besides the shuttering of FiveThirtyEight, which will result in the elimination of about 15 jobs across the news site, ABC is also consolidating some of its other programming that will lead to reduced staff. The news magazine shows 20/20 and Nightline, along with other long-form programming, will now fall under one leadership unit. The shows first aired in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Besides the shuttering of FiveThirtyEight and GMA3 being 'entirely gutted,' the company also got rid of investigations team executive producer Cindy Galli and Zach Toback, vice president of news and non-fiction production and studio operations at ABC News who had been a mainstay at the network. Notably, Toback was let go after helping move the company over to its new New York City headquarters at the Robert A. Iger building. 'It's a massacre,' an ABC News employee told Darcy, while another staffer compared the dire situation at the network to the dystopian Netflix series Squid Game. 'You just feel like you've made it to level seven of 'Squid Games' at this point if you've survived,' the employees stated. 'I've actually thought of this a lot," the person said. "I don't know if you have watched 'Squid Game,' but they put you in teams and they pit you against each other. And then they just watch and it's brutal. And then even the people who win the prize in the end ... they're so unhappy. That is literally network TV.' Even in his own memo to staff about the layoffs, network president Almin Karamehmedovic described the situation as 'incredibly challenging' and said it would 'undoubtedly be difficult for our organization.' At the same time, while informing the FiveThirtyEight staff of the site's demise and the loss of their jobs, Karamehmedovic had no explanation for why the site was being shut down and appeared to be reading from a script. Within minutes of the meeting, the website was pulled down and the staffers had their access revoked. While the company will be winding down the FiveThirtyEight brand, ABC News is expected to continue to provide 'best-in-class polling and political data analysis' across the network, a source noted. Whether this means retaining editorial director of data analytics G. Elliott Morris, who currently leads FiveThirtyEight, remains to be seen. It also isn't clear just yet what will happen with 538's extensive trove of data. 'As reported, the entire staff of 538 was laid off this morning,' Morris posted on Wednesday morning. 'This is a severe blow to political data journalism, and I feel for my colleagues. Readers note: As we were instructed not to publish any new content, all planned updates to polls data and averages are canceled indefinitely. Huge loss :(' Morris, for his part, further reacted to the news by praising the site's data collection as 'game-changing' and expressing hope that 'it gets a rebirth.' He added that it 'would need a modest budget for 2-3 researchers and 1-2 engineers.' He also noted that AI has 'made things easier' now, but that ABC News had forbidden the data site from using it in the past. Many journalists, meanwhile, have already been bemoaning the shuttering of the pivotal election data site. The 19th's Grace Panetta reacted by calling it a 'catastrophic loss not only for election journalism but also as an election data resource,' adding that she couldn't 'even count the number of times I've relied on 538's polling averages, redistricting trackers, etc for my reporting.' Former FiveThirtyEight reporter Kayleigh Rogers noted that '538's open source API and all the other data we/they freely compiled and shared over the years drove so much important work across the industry,' adding that 'this is going to have pretty severe ripple effects.' Silver also expressed heartbreak over his brainchild's imminent demise. (Silver departed the site amid previous widespread Disney/ABC layoffs in 2023.) 'Oh geez, I just saw the news about 538,' he tweeted Tuesday night. 'My heart goes out to the people there. They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better.' Disney Entertainment Networks, which includes Disney Channel, FX and Freeform, is also expected to lose staff from its planning and scheduling teams, though the precise figure was not immediately clear. Disney's digital editorial and social teams are set to be integrated with news gathering, shows and ABC-owned stations. The latest wave of staff cuts comes as the entertainment giant wrangles with declining television ratings and revenues over recent years, with audiences — and advertisers — opting to move to streaming platforms. Time spent on streaming platforms surged to more than 40 percent, with cable and broadcast plummeting to about 27 and 21 percent respectively, according to a Nielsen report published last summer. Media giants are reshaping their business strategies in response to the continued migration. CNN, for instance, recently laid off six percent of its staff as it looks to pivot to a digital-first strategy. Amid a programming overhaul, MSNBC announced that roughly 100 employees would be impacted, though the network said the laid-off staffers could apply for new jobs that would soon be opening across the network. Paramount, the parent company of CBS, is in the midst of laying off as much as 15 percent of its U.S. workforce. Like many entertainment businesses, Disney is looking for ways to trim costs on more traditional content — such as news programming — and increase spending on sports and entertainment. It follows 75 employees being laid off by ABC News and ABC-owned stations in October last year to reshape its team to 'embrace the new media landscape,' Almin Karamehmedovic, president of ABC News, wrote in a memo. A month earlier, Disney axed about 300 employees from corporate departments as it looked to redistribute its resources to 'fuel the state-of-the-art creativity,' a company representative said in a statement to Variety in September.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ABC News eliminating 538 amid layoffs
ABC News Group is eliminating its political arm, 538, which specializes in polling, surveys and data, amid wider layoffs at the Walt Disney parent company, according to information obtained by The Hill. The layoffs are expected to impact 200 employees which represents under 6 percent of the staff at the company and Disney Entertainment Networks unit. Fifteen employees at 538 will be let go. The Wall Street Journal first reported the reductions. The move is a part of broader consolidation efforts that include changes to ABC's on air programming, sources told The Hill. The network's '20/20' and 'Nightline' shows are set to be merged into one broadcast segment while the 'Good Morning America' production team will be shaved down into management overseen by one person, Simone Swink. Seni Tienabeso was named to the new role of VP, ABC News Live and some specialized units ABC cut approximately 75 jobs last fall under the leadership of Almin Karamehmedovic who was named president of the network in August of last year. Disney Entertainment Networks will also face workforce reductions amid low ratings, the sources said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
