Posted on 12/08/2006 4:18:41 PM PST by abb
Discovery has laid off nearly a third of its Discovery Education division, cutting some 80 people. The cuts were a result of redundancies and inefficiencies created within the division after Discovery acquired some seven companies in the last 18 months, according to a Discovery Communications spokesperson.
Discovery Education, whose main product is a school-based video educational service, will employ about 200 staffers going forward. The division, whose products are distributed in about 70,000 schools, has expanded over the past year and a half, launching new products including broadband homework help site Cosmeo.
As a result, the division has bought up several smaller companies, both educational video programmers as well as technology providers. They include educational audio-video provider United Learning, test assessment service ThinkLink Learning, homework helper Academy 123.
“We are still committed to education,” says the spokesperson, who confirmed the layoffs. “There is still a big investment there, but there were some redundancies.”
The layoffs come as Discovery’s new president/CEO David Zaslav spent time at the company’s Silver Springs headquarters this week, meeting with senior executives to discuss his vision for the company.
Expected to take up his post at the company early next year, the current NBC senior exec said at an investor conference Tuesday that Discovery’s portfolio of niche cable networks should strengthen their brands, rather than broadening out just to grow ratings.
Ping
"Department of Redundancy Department."
You can't do this to them, they have free speech!
Why are they classified as part of the Dinosaur Media?
This is not mainstream media, and is not a sign of corporate decline.
Don't water down the idea of dinosaur media deathwatch by adding events like this into the definition.
Do they report all the news that's fit to report?
Isn't Discovery owned by the NYT?
John Malone (Liberty Media) owns the largest chunk, I think. Recall, though, Discovery is the network that hired Ted Koppel after he left Nightline...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Channel
I thought it must have been the salary they're paying Tom Brokaw, or that guy from Nightline. I really can't remember.
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