Senior management at NBCUniversal will take a 20% pay cut due to the coronavirus outbreak’s effect on ad revenue, with other employees making more than $100,000 per year taking a 3% cut.
“In order to deal with the depth of this crisis and its effect on our company we need to address our cost base,” NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell wrote in a memo to staff, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Shell said that the network also will slash the budgets for travel, entertainment, and outside consultants.
“There is no question that the current environment is having a significant impact on our company’s performance,” he wrote. “Advertising revenue is starting to fall."
NBCUniversal, a part of Comcast Corp., owns the NBC broadcast network, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, along with Universal Pictures movie studios and theme parks, which have closed due to the pandemic. NBC spent $1.45 billion on the rights to broadcast the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, which were postponed until at least next year.
Shell announced on Tuesday that NBCUniversal will undergo some staff shakeups, with NBC News head Andy Lack leaving and being replaced by Cesar Conde, the head of Telemundo, and the entire company’s broadcast, cable and streaming services coming under the remit of Mark Lazarus, who was in charge of NBCUniversal’s sports and local news broadcasting.
“I believe these changes not only put us in a position to become a more efficient company, but also will enable us to have a more cohesive content strategy thereby strengthening our competitive position,” Shell wrote.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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