ESPN’s “First Take.” (Philly.com)
by Daniel Roberts ESPN
ESPN will cut more than 100 employees today, Yahoo Finance has learned.
That number is much bigger than the 40-50 that was initially reported. ESPN aims to notify all of the people today, if it can do so.
It
has been widely reported for weeks that big cuts are coming to ESPN—so
widely reported, and dissected, and gossiped about, in fact, that ESPN
moved up its schedule and is notifying people earlier than it originally
planned.
The
100 people getting cut are all “on-air talent,” a label ESPN uses for
TV personalities, radio hosts, and writers who regularly appear on TV
and radio. (ESPN says it has 1,000 such people, prior to these cuts.)
In
addition to those 100, a “limited number of other positions will also
be affected,” according to a note sent to all employees on Wednesday
morning from ESPN president John Skipper.
A
source tells Yahoo Finance the number of non-talent getting cut is
indeed a “very limited” number, but nonetheless, the number is on top of
the 100 on-air talents.
In his companywide memo,
posted publicly, Skipper frames the cuts around a shifting content
strategy. ESPN’s content strategy, he writes, “still needs to go
further, faster… and as always, must be efficient and nimble. Dynamic
change demands an increased focus on versatility and value, and as a
result, we have been engaged in the challenging process of determining
the talent—anchors, analysts, reporters, writers and those who handle
play-by-play—necessary to meet those demands. We will implement changes
in our talent lineup this week.”
The company also posted a public statement on its content strategy
to its press page. The statement says that ESPN’s “content is
evolving,” and that, “given how fans’ habits are changing, our focus
continues to be providing high-quality, distinctive content at any
minute of the day on any screen.”
As
examples of success in its current strategy, the statement touts: the
midnight SportsCenter hosted by Scott Van Pelt; the new 6pm SportsCenter
(“The Six”) hosted by Jemele Hill and Michael Smith; the ESPN app, with
“increased personalization”; and “numerous examples this year of ESPN’s
multi-screen approach around big events” such as the College Football
Playoff Championship and fantasy football.
ESPN
also says in the statement that in May it will relaunch “two of our
biggest journalism brands,” the shows Outside the Lines and E:60, with a
“larger presence digitally, socially and across all our screens.”
ESPN’s subscriber numbers have dropped steadily, weighing on parent company Disney, forcing a new round of cost-cutting. When Disney demands cuts, ESPN can make those cuts however it chooses.
ESPN had major layoffs in 2015, as it did two years before that, in 2013. Both times, it cut around 300 people.
This time around, the network reportedly sought to cut tens of millions
of dollars, and decided that ridding itself of big expensive contracts
was the way to do it.
As ESPN’s content strategy evolves and it looks to reach consumers on platforms other than traditional cable, it expects more from its on-air people than ever before. A source at ESPN frames the cuts this way: “We are focusing on people that can be
versatile and appear cross-platform. If you’re making X, are you
justifying that salary? It’s all about versatility.” Translation:
old-school veterans that appear only on TV, and don’t do much else, may
be the ones in trouble.
Of
course, the problems ESPN faces are not exclusive to ESPN. It’s not
news to anyone that media is a struggling business these days—print,
broadcast, and digital. But sports television is especially brutal right
now: programming costs keep rising, while viewership is falling.
Something has to give.
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