The pink slips were passed out on Thursday throughout the various business duchies that make up CBS Interactive—CNET, CBS.com, CBSNews,com, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, last.fm, and CHOW. While CBS confirmed to me and other reporters that layoffs did happen across the board, it refused to talk about how many total people are losing their jobs. That left us scrambling about gathering piecemeal information. There were about 20 layoffs at Last.fm; 8 editors, we hear, at CBSNews.com are out of a job; another set of “redundancies” were eliminated at CBSSports.com.
But how big exactly were the layoffs, especially at Cnet, where most of the employees reside? CBS, which is at heart a news organization, doesn’t want the public to know how many layoffs just occurred at CBS Interactive. As of this writing, Cnet didn’t even report the fact that there were layoffs on Thursday. Neither did CBSNews.com. And it’s not because they didn’t get the memo (from CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith, reprinted below).
One rumor going around, which I heard as well, was that there were 20 percent cuts in all business units (which was in line with the cuts at Last.fm). But that percentage turns out to be a bit high. According to a source inside Cnet, the buzz is that the total number of employees asked to leave today was “275-ish.” A CBS spokesperson wouldn’t confirm that number. So take it as a rough estimate.
Don’t expect a press release or even a footnote in CBS Corporation’s SEC filings either. CBS as a whole employed nearly 24,000 people at the end of 2007 (the last figure I can find), so 275 is barley one percent. That is not material, and thus the company is not required to report it. But for CBS Interactive, it is material—about 10 percent or higher.
Here’s how I get at that figure. The vast majority of employees are at Cnet, which if you look at the last 10K it filed with the SEC, lists 2,700 employees at the end of 2007. There was at least one round of layoffs at Cnet in March, 2008, which reduced headcount by 120. And a CBS Interactive spokesperson told me today that before Cnet was acquired in July, 2008, it had 2,000 to 2,500 employees. But that was more a guesstimate than a hard number. Figure some more attrition, then give or take a few hundred employees at the other CBS properties, and that puts the total employee count back somewhere between 2,300 and 2,700. Sticking with the 275 layoffs, that represents between 10 and 12 percent.
We’ve updated our Layoff Tracker with this estimate.
Below is the memo Quincy Smith sent on Thursday afternoon to all CBS Interactive employees, delivering the layoff news in the vaguest terms as part of a progress report. Basically, everywhere he is combining business units (in sports, games, music, lifestyle, entertainment, news, marketing, and biz dev), people are losing jobs.
From: Quincy and Neil
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:33:25 -0800
Subject: CBS Interactive UpdateTeam,
As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.
Progress
CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.
Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.
Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.
Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.
Organizational Promotions and Changes
As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.
Sports, Games and Music
We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.
Entertainment & Lifestyle
We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.
Technology & News
Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.
CBS Interactive Marketing
We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.
CBS Interactive Business Development
We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.
Market Conditions
As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.
CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.
Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.
Best,
-q, NA
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not going to be a happy holiday for many people this year.
A firing news is too bad for a company; they never reveal it hence. Any firing news - I’m only interested to check what arrangement they make for the victims and help them to get other jobs.
- Mani
http://ExcuseMeWorld.com/
Why should organizations feel compelled or obligated to broadcast how many workers were fired.
It is exceptionally depressing getting fired WEEKS before Xmas.
Come January, there will probably be many more firings from Companies that chose to wait until AFTER the holidays
I dunno, I figure it goes along with having good information in a free marketplace. Why should people have to plan not knowing what is going on and what might lie ahead?
hahaha love the math going off vague reports and rough estimates
Peter
http://www.thewebwar.com
hmmmm. dont think they reported it because the people who would have written the report…. you get the picture.
Given the economic conditions now and coming over 2009, 10% is a fair cost reduction - maybe not deep enough.
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Wow, sensitive journalism at it’s best. You guys are pondscum.
CBS is trying to hide the fact that they just got rid of 275 people, and we’re pondscum? Get some perspective.
Erick, in all honesty you guys have had it out for CNET for YEARS! Anything that can be said, written or discussed to make them look bad you take advantage of.
Like you said this is barely 1% of the CBS team, so nominal in fact that they dont need to even report it in fillings. next time you make a $1.8 billion dollar acquisition, let me know and we will discuss how you going about creating efficiencies in your business.
Sittuation in US real bad with BOA and Citi.
Sunita
still, i dont think they reported it because the people who would have written the report may be NOT
TechCrunch: You’re a bunch of cunts, Really.
you should all get a punch in the face.
this kind of post is garbage, you scumbags.
wow - people are angry
So CBS acquired CNET a few months ago. Did you think they’d go on a hiring binge? Even if the economy was healthy, they’d have had layoffs. I’m not really sure why you think there’s a story here, and I’m not an employee of CBS or any of its affiliates.
So when 275 people lose their jobs I should just not report it? That’s a lot of people. You are right, though, it is surprising that they didn’t do it sooner. But I can’t write about it until they actually do it.
The real issue here is CBS’s obfuscation. Its employees deserve better, its shareholders deserve better, and so does the general public.
hope you’re enjoying all of your reader comments, schonfeld. really striking a chord with your elegant use of general editorial morals.
I’ll take the hit. I have no problem with my editorial morals.
Erick - don’t get so defensive. I appreciate the story.
Questions: What about their CNET Business unit? No mention of it in the memo. how generous was the severance? And their more obscure-but-revenue-generating units like whichever one houses MySimon?
Observations: There is still lots of fat that could be trimmed, I’m sure.
This article is germane and fair, I think, but there’s seems to be a perception at CNet that there’s some amount of gloating from the TC writers. I don’t know them personally but, while I don’t have any type of figures, I’m sure TC revenues are being affected similarly to the CNet revenues; both appeal to a similar demographic. I’ll admit that I don’t find the CNet/News.com reporting fair a lot of time — ever since the “Al Gore invented the Internet” lie they threw out (or their call this week to hire more H1B’s) — but also don’t think the layoffs are entirely the result of editorial.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/....._pink.html
CNET did report about the cost reductions at the place where it reports such things:
http://news.cnet.com/tech-layoffs
That happens to be a crappy copy of TC’s layoff tracker that Needleman put together for CNET; it is not a “reporting” of the event in question, however. Not only that, but the list has CBS Interactive’s layoffs as “undisclosed”. Enough BS you guys, this article is right on.
I think it’s insensitive that someone said less than 1% of CBS was affected. Perhaps you are not in that 1%, but for those of us that are it hurts.
Curious Cat: CNET Business is what they call BNET, so it is in the memo (says one of those laid off from a different unit in March and hired by another company in August.)
I know someone who was cut in this round as well. It’s never easy to be laid off, regardless of the circumstances, so whatever you think of the reporting, be kind to anyone from any company who is going through that emotional and financial turmoil. There will be more cuts at many companies and all of us will fear the worst. If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention. Be generous and gentle with each other.
I agree with Mani wholly. I am interested only to know what arrangement they make for victims in the firing list and whether they show their commitment in earning their livelihood.
I was one of the victims. worked there for 6 months fresh out of college with an econ degree. they hired me to work in cnet.com, ie news, reviews, download, shopper, etc. I really don’t understand why’d they would train me and then fired me.
Actually CBS Interactive has been doing layoffs every few months the entire year. The one in December is just a larger one that triggered the WARN act in almost every city they are located. They’ve secretly been hiding the bodies all year.
CBS Interactive has been doing small layoffs all year (every few months). This one just got noticed because it was slightly larger. I bet the actual number is quite higher if you look the entire year.
By the way it triggered the WARN act so the severance was at least two months. I’m not sure about the smaller layoffs the entire year though, This sucks for them.
why layoff 600 employees only to turn around and start hiring?