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NBC Universal to cut 3 percent of 2009 budget: report (Reuters) – NBC Universal, the broadcasting unit of General Electric Co, plans to cut $500 million from next year’s budget, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. NBC Universal said the cuts will amount to 3 percent of its 2009 budget, according to the report in the newspapers electronic edition. "We are living in a time of unprecedented economic challenges," Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal’s chief executive, wrote in a company memo, the newspaper said. "It has become evident that the decline in consumer confidence and spending will impact our operations." |
From Jim Metrock:
The remaining Channel One News employees have to be very worried about their jobs.
NBC is about to cut the deadwood out of its operations. Uh oh.
Channel One News as a brand died years ago. I was pleased to be a part of that, but I give most credit to the shockingly incompetent people who have worked and are working at Channel One. They never developed an appreciation for the young captive audience they were serving (or rather, were exploiting).The company has limped along on the hope that "things will turn around." Well, they have, but not in the direction Channel One’s owners had wanted. Things have turned around DOWNWARD – like in DEEP SPIRAL.
The last thing the Alloy gang needed was a recession. Advertising is always hit hard in times like this. Even before the bad times hit, Channel One’s sales force failed to make any significant improvement in Channel One’s ad revenue stream. Now that the long darkness of an advertising recession is settling over Channel One, the fat lady again is moving towards the microphone.
If you haven’t seen Channel One News lately, it is worth a view. The company is trying to produce a daily show on a shoestring. They can’t cut too much more. The program is a shell of its "glory days" in the early and mid-90’s.
Kent Haehl, Kathy Goodman, Angela Hunter, Paul "Dude, Where’s My Car?" Folkemer, Andrew Knopf, Robert Rosentel, Mohamed Sayed, Chris Alexander, Eric Jones, Hannah Van Winkle, Gary Hamilton, Tom Szold, and Kristen Powers, all of you should be checking over your resumes. I encourage each of you to network with other marketing companies as much as possible. Remember, Channel One is more a marketing company than a news-gathering company. I also would suggest that you remove all mention of "Channel One" from your work history. The last thing you want is a prospective employer look up from your resume saying, "You got to be kidding me?!"
