Yerrr…another day, another round of media layoffs. Disney just axed 200 employees across ABC News and its entertainment networks. A+E is in the middle of a strategic rebrand, cutting cable-era baggage as it pivots toward streaming and digital. E.W. Scripps and Tegna are trimming headcount. And our digital publishing peers like The Wall Street Journal and LA Times are shedding jobs, too.
And let’s not forget the gut punch from late last year: our industry brethren like Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable—two of the most venerable broadcast trade pubs—were shut down in September. Their parent company, Future, folded them into a generic media newsletter, like ours, erasing decades of industry coverage. That loss wasn’t just about jobs—it was about the disappearance of legacy platforms that once shaped the media business.
If this all sounds like déjà vu, it’s because it is. The media industry has been bleeding jobs for years, with 2024 serving up a particularly brutal round of cuts. But here’s the twist: despite the latest high-profile layoffs, total job losses in media this year are lower than in early 2024. So, are companies finally finding a way to cut smarter instead of just cutting deeper?
Disney’s Latest Cost-Saving Magic Trick
Let’s start with the Mouse House. Disney’s layoffs hit less than 6% of its ABC News and entertainment network staff, with most of the pain being felt in New York. The biggest casualty? FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s former data journalism brand, is getting shut down and absorbed into ABC News. Apparently, data-driven political analysis wasn’t enough to justify keeping 15 people on the payroll.
Meanwhile, the Good Morning America empire is being streamlined under a single executive, and longform units like 20/20, Nightline, and ABC News Studios are being lumped together. Over in Disney Entertainment Networks, planning and scheduling teams—aka, the folks responsible for figuring out what you watch and when—are taking a hit, along with some roles at Disney’s Vancouver-based animation studio.
A+E Drops ‘Networks’ from Its Name—And Some Old-School Thinking
A+E Networks—jointly owned by Disney and Hearst—wants you to forget it’s a traditional TV company. The new name? A+E Global Media. The mission? Ditch the reliance on pay TV, double down on streaming, FAST channels, and digital-first content.
The rebrand isn’t just a cosmetic change. A+E is rolling out a new digital division, expanding YouTube and SVOD channels, and partnering with Tyler Perry Studios on new projects. The company’s ad sales division is now called A+E Media Solutions—because “ad sales” is so last decade.
This shift makes sense. With pay-TV numbers cratering and sports-dominated media giants gobbling up ad dollars, A+E is positioning itself as the premium entertainment alternative. No sports, just history, reality TV, and true crime. The question is: will advertisers buy in?
The Bigger Picture: Fewer Layoffs or Just Delayed Pain?
Media layoffs are down—sort of. Because we called it –sort of. January 2025 saw 624 job cuts across TV, film, streaming, and news, which is 41% lower than the 836 jobs lost in January 2024. In the news sector specifically, layoffs dropped a whopping 64% compared to last year.
So, does that mean we’re out of the woods? Not exactly. What’s really happening is a shift in how these cuts are happening. Instead of mass layoffs wiping out entire divisions, companies are making surgical strikes—eliminating redundancies, consolidating operations, and “restructuring” their way to leaner teams.
For example, while E.W. Scripps and Tegna are trimming local TV jobs, they aren’t gutting entire newsrooms. The Wall Street Journal is cutting positions but is simultaneously launching a new tech and media team. The LA Times is reducing headcount through voluntary buyouts rather than mass layoffs.
And in the trade publication world? The death of Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable sent a clear message: legacy media coverage isn’t immune from the same pressures affecting the companies it reports on.
Hold Up… If the Streaming Wars Are Over, Do I Still Have a Job?
Now, if you’ve been following the intrepid media cartographer, Evan Shapiro, you know he’s declared the Streaming Wars are over. Netflix won. Game over. We think of the “streaming wars” as something else that Kirby wrote about here before. But I digress.
Congrats to Netflix.
According to Shapiro, the real fight now is The Great Media War—Big Media vs. Big Tech, Corporate Content vs. the Creator Economy, old revenue models vs. whatever franken-business model we’re supposed to cobble together next.
Which, honestly, is great. But, uh… if the Streaming Wars are officially over, does that mean The Streaming Wars (this rad publication you’re reading) might not have a place to write next week? Asking for a friend.
The Take
Layoffs may be slowing down, but don’t expect the job cuts to stop altogether. The media business is still trying to figure out a sustainable model in the streaming era. Cable networks are consolidating. Digital brands are shifting to subscription and social-driven models. And with ad dollars increasingly flowing to platforms like YouTube and TikTok, traditional media companies are scrambling to stay relevant.
Disney and A+E’s moves are just the latest examples of an industry that’s still very much in transition. The question isn’t whether more jobs will be cut—it’s where the axe will fall next.
