ABC News and the ABC Stations Group were hit with layoffs on Wednesday, part of an ongoing restructuring cycle at Disney.
About 75 staff members at ABC News and local ABC-owned television stations will be laid off. The Hollywood journalist he learned, split evenly between the national news organization and the television group. No schedules will be affected and no entire teams will be eliminated, but the company is making the changes to be “sustainable, efficient and forward-thinking,” according to someone familiar with the decision.
ABC News President Almin Karmehmedovic and ABC station chief Chad Matthews announced the restructuring in memos to their teams on Wednesday.
“As you know, this has been happening across the company and the industry in general over the past few weeks and months,” Karmehmedovic wrote. “For us, it means building a team that embraces the new media landscape and evolves with it, which we must do to continue serving our viewers.”
“As we look to the future and refine a team that is not only capable of excelling in reporting and delivering the highest quality content, but which is also lean and sustainable, we sometimes have to make some tough decisions,” he wrote. “Unfortunately today is one of those days.”
“It's no secret that our industry is going through a transformation unlike any other, and every day we see headlines about streamlining across every major media company,” Matthews recalls. “While we are not immune to the pressures this business faces today, we have been – and will continue to be – strategic in decisions about the future of our organization.”
“Local news is the lifeblood of every market, and we are fortunate to have so many talented teams across the country investing in communities like you,” he continued. “Nothing will change our commitment to viewers as we evolve our organization to meet the challenges of today and the future.”
Disney has been making cuts across the company in recent weeks in a new round of restructuring. That included cuts last month to its corporate structure and major changes to its television studios, with all scripted programming in a single division and its ABC Signature studio closing and being turned into TV's 20th.
Earlier this year, Pixar cut about 175 jobs as it moved away from TV series production, and Disney underwent a massive reorganization last year, cutting about 7,000 jobs.