New Media Woes

I have a couple of stories today on the state of journalism. A bit outside my usual topic - well, I do make fun of journalists from time to time - but it seems to be appropriate this week.

First we have the state of Vice Media: Vice to stop publishing on website, lay off hundreds. This was apparently unexpected.

Vice Media will lay off hundreds of employees and stop publishing on its website, the company’s leadership announced this week.

CEO Bruce Dixon said, “It is no longer cost effective to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously,” in a memo sent to employees and shared with several media outlets Thursday.

Several people have asked the question, how is it not cost effective to publish a website? I'm not sure if that has been answered. It certainly could be too expensive to employ "100s of people" to produce that website.

Vice is the latest in a slew of digital media companies that have been forced to lay off staff as a cost-cutting measure in an increasingly tough digital advertising market, increased fragmentation across the media landscape and fast-changing news consumption habits.

They mention layoffs at The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and the demise of a startup The Messenger after less than a year. I don't know anything about The Messenger, but it was billed, apparently, by the founder as being a "WaPo/Daily Mail hybrid." It shut down in January.

Vice Media is not going away completely, but parts of it will continue, though it isn't clear in what way.

Also the media outlet BuzzFeed is going through some stuff as well. BuzzFeed Sells Complex to Ntwrk for $108.6 Million, Will Lay Off 16% of Remaining Workforce.

BuzzFeed has sold Complex - the youth-culture media company it bought three years ago - and will pink-slip another 16% of BuzzFeed's remaining staffers in a restructuring designed to get back on financial track

BuzzFeed purchased Complex in 2021 for a total of $294 million. Though to be fair, the sale doesn't include everything that it purchased in 2021; BuzzFeed is keeping the First We Feast branded content.

The 16% reduction will be from a starting point of an existing employee base of about 1000. It comes after laying off 180 people in 2023 related to closing down its news division.

The proceeds of the sale will be used to eliminate debt. The continuing operations are generating revenue of $73 million or more, so it is hard for me to understand how this company can't make a go if it. I guess that there are some who expect it to be broken up, and sold off in chunks.