NBC - NBC, VIACOM SWELL JOBLESS LINES

NBC, VIACOM SWELL JOBLESS LINES

Along with Christmas greetings, hundreds of media workers will find pink slips in their mail during the holiday season. NBC Universal and Viacom each announced huge job cuts that together will put 1,350 employees out of work. While the cuts will eventually result in savings of hundreds of millions of dollars, severance fees and other costs will hit the two companies' fourth-quarter results hard. Viacom said it would reduce its work force by some 7 percent (850 jobs); NBC Universal, 3 percent (500 jobs). "The changes we are making in our organization and processes will better position Viacom to navigate the economic slowdown and generate sizable efficiencies that will help us drive our business as the marketplace stabilizes and conditions improve," Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Daumon said in a statement. Most of Viacom's cuts reportedly will come at MTV Networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and Comedy Central.) Paramount will lose about 4 percent of its workforce. Three highly visible NBC News correspondents were among those laid off John Larson of Dateline NBC, Dallas-based Don Teague, and Beijing-based Mark Mullen. At CNBC, The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch is being shelved."The media is an industry in transition in the midst of a tough slowdown, and there's potential for additional job cuts, but they have to be done without hurting the fabric of these companies," Barrington Research analyst James Goss told today's (Friday) Wall Street Journal. And media analyst Harold Vogel, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times , predicted more job cuts in the future. "I don't think there will be a massive wave of more layoffs, but this period of malaise is going to last quite a while. How to save costs is going to be on the front burner for a long time," Vogel said. Meanwhile, the publications that report on the economic downturn are being similarly affected by it. Daily Variety reported today that its rival, The Hollywood Reporter, dropped more than a dozen employees from its editorial staff, including managing editor Harley Lond and lead TV critic Barry Garron.

05/12/2008