Disney is laying off just under 200 staffers across its TV and ABC News operations, the latest in a series of cuts to its employment base as it navigates more difficult terrain for media companies.
The reductions account for nearly 6% of staff across the two business operations according to a person familiar with the matter. As part of the moves, the company is winding down FiveThirtyEight, aka 538, the data unit that was part of ESPN before moving to ABC News, and had become a go-to source for analysis of polling data in the run-up to U.S elections.
Disney declined to make executives available for comment.
The cuts at ABC News come about as the result of combining different groups of staff through moves that had been previously unveiled. All units of “Good Morning America” — including the flagship program, “GMA3” and ABC News’ overnight broadcasts — report to executive Simone Swink. ABC News Live and several specialist units report to Seni Tienabeso. ABC News combined units devoted to long-form programming that makes up “20/20” and “Nightline.”
The majority of the cuts are directed at ABC News, according to the person familiar with the matter. ABC News also lost some employees in October, when Disney cut 75 staffers across ABC News and its local stations.
More to come
