Vox Media is cutting approximately 50 employees—or about 5 percent of its 1,000-person workforce—from several of its sites and offering “role changes” to a dozen others. (Adweek)
Racked, Curbed, SB Nation and Video Services teams will “[bear] the biggest impact.” (THR)
The layoffs were prompted by the realization that social video initiatives won’t be “viable audience or revenue growth drivers” relative to other investments, given industry changes over the past few months and the company’s own budgeting process, Bankoff wrote in a memo to employees on Wednesday. (WSJ / CMO Today)
But he added that Vox made its numbers for 2017, which stands in contrast to other digital titans including Vice Media and BuzzFeed, which cut staff after missing budgets for the year. (New York Post)
Investors in New York-based Vox Media include NBCUniversal—which took a $200 million stake in the company in 2015—along with Accel Partners, Allen & Co., Khosla Ventures and General Atlantic. Its brands and businesses include Vox, The Verge, Eater, Curbed, Recode and the Code Conferences, Racked, Polygon, Concert and Vox Creative. (Variety)