The E. W. Scripps Company is laying off nearly 270 workers across its broadcast television operation as the media organization moves forward with a new “phase of our transformation plan,” its chief executive said on Tuesday.
In a company-wide memo, Scripps CEO Adam Symson confirmed pink slips were sent to 268 workers, whom he called “teammates who have helped build and serve this company in important ways.”
“We are deeply grateful for everything they have contributed,” Symson noted.
The memo confirms a report first published by The Desk on Monday, which said layoffs announcements were imminent. According to numerous sources, workers at Scripps-owned local television stations in New York, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas were among those affected by the job cuts, which range from newsroom production roles to local sales positions.
Symson confirmed that some newly-acquired Scripps stations in markets like Colorado Springs and Twin Falls will be the epicenter of deep consolidation efforts and unspecified “cost actions” that are rooted in making “fundamental changes in the product,” where newsroom resources will be recommitted to exploring enterprise-level reporting rather than “competing for the same finite resources and the same set of stories.”
To that end, Scripps will launch new around-the-clock news streams for its local news-producing stations, which will be tailored to “each market’s needs,” Symson said. Many Scripps news-producing stations already have free, ad-supported streaming TV channels, and it wasn’t clear from his note how the relaunched streams will be different to viewers.
One approach that will be different involves overall local news production: Symson said Scripps will produce digital-first news through a “hub” model that will “centralize the digital news production work that doesn’t need to be replicated in every market.” The move will create “efficiency and sustainability while preserving our ability to serve local communities across every platform.”
“The move to a centralized approach will make it easier to stay aligned on strategy, execute best practices and evolve at the speed digital demands,” Symson said.
Like other broadcasters, Scripps has been forced to reckon with shifting consumer trends that have siphoned viewership away from traditional TV channels in favor of streaming platforms, some of which are owned by companies whose broadcast networks are carried on Scripps-owned channels. Platforms like Peacock, ESPN Unlimited, Fox One and Paramount Plus offer the same national entertainment and sports programming that Scripps carries on its network-affiliated stations, and advertising dollars have steadily flowed away from local broadcast TV toward network-owned apps in recent quarters.
Local broadcasters, including Scripps, have addressed both trends by charging more for their channels on cable and satellite platforms. That strategy has led to rising costs for pay TV subscribers, fueling a wave of cord-cutting that deprives Scripps and other broadcasters of affiliate fee revenue, which is often calculated on a per-subscriber basis.
During a recent dispute with DIRECTV, Symson said the loss of channels on that platform was not intrinsically tied to the company’s decision to invest more in local sports programming. In an interview with Awful Announcing, Symson accused DIRECTV of misleading the public to that end, characterizing the matter as a routine carriage dispute involving a pay TV platform that simply didn’t want to pay its fair share for highly-prized, network-affiliated programming.
About a week later, Symson agreed to a conversation with The Desk on background, where many of the same claims were made. The conversation took place while Symson was traveling; a few days earlier, he participated in a bell-ringing ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange following the company’s latest production of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Rumors about pending layoffs at Scripps began last week, following a conference call with local media executives, according to two sources briefed on the conversation. During the call, a senior-level media executive based at one of its Tennessee stations accidentally disclosed the planned job cuts at some of its local stations, the sources said.
Some station managers who were participating in the call began notifying senior-level workers about possible job cuts. The conversations occurred while many of Scripps’ local TV stations were holding readiness meetings about the company’s efforts in automation across production, newsgathering and sales, the sources said.
Three sources said workers at a handful of stations were told to brace for the likelihood of pink slips going out on Tuesday, The Desk reported earlier this week. Employees at Scripps-owned stations in Oklahoma and Nebraska were among those told to prepare for job losses, the sources said.
Scripps operates around five dozen local TV stations across the country, and is in the process of acquiring two dozen Ion-affiliated outlets that were divested several years ago. The acquisition is still awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Messages sent to Scripps officials between last Thursday and earlier this week were not returned. Symson was copied on the notes, but did not respond to them. A Scripps communications executive provided The Desk with a copy of Symson’s company-wide memo late Tuesday afternoon. She was out of office when those outreach efforts were made.
Scripps is scheduled to disclose their second quarter financial earnings later this week.
