Last.fm Lays Off Around 20 Staff, Part Of CBS/CNET Integration
Last night, Last.fm staff in London were celebrating their Christmas party at a venue complete with hot tub. Through today’s hangover, they heard about 20 percent are being disposed of as parent CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) restructures in a cost-cutting move. CBS, which splashed out $280 million in May 2007 on the social music site, confirmed to us “around 20” of its 95 staff are being laid off. Clearly, it’s part of wider cost-cutting and integration within CBS Interactive, which today confirmed our earlier story it’s merging its CBSNews.com newsroom with that of CNET. No specifics on either Last.fm or CBS/CNET layoffs yet.
Asked about Last.fm, a CBS spokesperson reiterated the party line on the wider strategy: “CBS Interactive continues its integration process, which now calls for the further combination of several portions of the division into unified groups oriented around similar content. This important move allows us to better align our premium content for our audiences and our advertisers, and also results in reduction in certain areas that are now duplicated in the new organisation structure.”
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Posted In: Entertainment, Music, Companies, CBS, CBS Interactive, CNET, Countries, Europe, last.fm, layoffs
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Comments (0)
Dec 11, 2008 10:48 PM
During the recession, what most company think about is cutting down costs and that leads to a bloody laid off, with less staff doesnt always solve the problem, $280 Million in may wasted on a social music site!!, thats enough money to keep more then 1000 staff in their job, its more wise spending that will cut down waste.
Dec 13, 2008 11:38 AM
Wednesday Yahoo gave pinkslips to few employees. I hate this lay off.