On Wednesday, many CBS News staffers got a shock: they were fired.
CBS News president Susan Zirinsky, head of a news network that employs over 500 staffers, issued a memo on Wednesday that management “had to make some extremely difficult decisions” due to “the economic fallout from the pandemic coming on top of the cost savings initiatives already underway from the merger of CBS and Viacom,” The Hollywood Reporter (THR) noted.
Page Six, which reported that 75 members of the news network were fired, wrote that the memo stated:
None could have foreseen the economic fallout from the pandemic coming on top of the cost savings initiatives already underway from the merger of CBS and Viacom. As a result, we have scrutinized our entire business model, our budgets, and what we learned in news-gathering during the last months. We are not alone; media companies and businesses all over the country are re-organizing and developing new operating models.
Working with reduced budgets, we have had to make some extremely difficult decisions. I’m sad to report today that some of our colleagues and good friends will be leaving the company. These decisions are particularly painful for our entire organization, which has performed at the highest level during the COVID-19 pandemic, overcoming so many obstacles. But this restructuring is necessary to ensure CBS News remains strong long into the future.
CBS News is not alone in this process — similar changes are happening across many CBS divisions today and have taken place in Viacom divisions over the past few months. We looked at every option and exhausted other available cost-savings before taking this step. There is nothing more upsetting than having to face these economic realities and I’ve tried very hard to minimize the impact on all of you. While it is a painful day, I know the strength and the power of this organization, and I know that we can go forward in a meaningful way.
One CBS News staffer told THR, “Everyone is shocked.” On a phone call with employees, Zirinsky reportedly stated, “There isn’t a single person leaving who did a bad job. It’s economics. It is absolutely the financials that has forced us to make these decisions. … I’m really sorry. There is not a person who won’t be missed … It is hard to come to an organization and make cuts when you have stepped up to the plate and delivered,” adding the network “tried to spread the cuts out across every broadcast so the journalism would not be impacted.”
Zirinsky announced in mid-March that CBS News’ morning show would be broadcast from the Ed Sullivan Theater because the network’s headquarters was empty. On the staff phone call Wednesday, she referenced that decision, saying, “If you would have told me I’d be in the Ed Sullivan control room for 11 f***ing weeks, I would have said, ‘Give me some of whatever you’re smoking.'”
Last December Viacom and CBS merged. THR reported, “In New York, some 450 staffers have been impacted by cuts companywide at ViacomCBS since January, per a filing with the state’s Department of Labor.”
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