Turner Broadcasting has started the brutal task of cutting hundreds of employees across all units, from TNT and TBS to CNN and HLN.
Jane Velez-Mitchell on HLN is the most notable on-air personality cut. Her final show was Monday night after six years on the network as an evening host. Year over year, her ratings were down significantly. She was based out of New York.
The entire entertainment unit has been reportedly cut, which includes staff that covers red carpet events and award shows.
About 300 of the 1,475 people to be cut across Turner Broadcasting is hitting the CNN/HLN unit. Of those 300, 170 were layoffs and 130 from early retirement offers. Before the cuts, CNN/HLN had about 4,000 employees, half of which were based out of Atlanta.
Overall, Turner Broadcasting is losing 10.5 percent of its 14,000-person workforce worldwide with 2/3 of the cuts coming out of Atlanta. CNN/HLN is taking an 8 percent cutback in staffing.
Over the past few days, human resources, ad sales and marketing have been hit but a bulk of the announcements will be done soon.
According to Capital New York, "CNN president Jeff Zucker has said that he wants to protect digital, original series and breaking news, leaving production, corporate departments and some newsgathering roles ripe for trimming."
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