SpinMedia Cuts 19 Jobs and Vibe’s Print Edition
Recently appointed CEO Stephen Blackwell said SpinMedia is "100 percent focused on digital" and he's following through with that as Vibe's print edition and jobs that supported it are getting cut. But job cuts went further than print edition support as Blackwell puts the piece in places for a run that I'm sure he hopes is longer than that of his predecessors. The bottom line comes down to whether or not Blackwell and company can make enough money for investors to be satisfied before they decide to start selling off pieces of SpinMedia.
SpinMedia CEO No. 4 said SpinMedia's going 100% digital and so they are.
Yesterday Capital New York reported that SpinMedia fired 19 people on Tuesday. Most of the cuts were in the "video, photo, and sales departments."
CEO Stephen Blackwell spoke with Capital about the cuts focusing on those that are partly due to the end of Vibe's print run:
"If we're directing resources toward print, that intrinsically means that we're directing resources away from digital. I'm here to commit to directing all of our resources toward the digital side of Vibe."
He said the layoffs, in Capital New York's words, were "aimed at eliminating unprofitable positions in order to free up money that could be used to hire more people to produce compelling content and increase traffic."
Or, as he put it:
"If we had a photo editor position that wasn't necessarily affecting our growth, and we were obviously paying for that position to be there, can we use that money a little bit better? What we realized is that, yeah, we could use that money a little bit better to affect growth, affect social value, and affect our position in market."
Here's to using money a bit better!
More:
- Stephen Blackwell Goes 100% Digital As New SpinMedia CEO
- New Spin Editor in Chief Leaves Print Behind To Focus On Mobile
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) recently launched DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Stephen is not focused on video. His site practically had no video. This company is doomed for failure.