Old Media, New Media

OLD MEDIA, NEW MEDIA
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Anne Becker]
Last year, almost 18,000 media employees lost their jobs -- the biggest group of layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. Some of the world's biggest “old-media” companies -- including MTV Networks, NBC Universal, Disney and Discovery Communications -- are axing staffers in handfuls and hundreds. In one of the biggest reductions, Time Warner's AOL began cutting 5,000 employees in December, about 26% of its workforce. U.S. media companies announced they were slashing a total of 17,809 jobs in 2006, 88% more than in the year before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a New York-based global outplacement firm that tracks layoffs. The cuts reflect a grim reality for these media giants: Staying ahead often means cutting heads. As viewers shift their media-consumption habits, TV operations are forced to take a hard look at how they have been run and staffed for years. And in many cases, they've realized, they just don't need the same people they used to.
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