BizJournals Portfolio
Home >   Business Views, Opinions and Blogs >   Business Blogs >   Market Movers >  

Viacom Datapoint Of The Day

Market Movers

by Felix Salmon
Main
Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition   How Can GM Bondholders be Bailed In?

Recent Blog Posts

Links

Dec 04 2008 9:20am EDT

Viacom Datapoint of the Day

Viacom's announcing that it's cutting 850 jobs, or 7% of its workforce, at a cost of between $400 million and $450 million. Which, if you do the math, works out at about half a million dollars per job reduction.

You think that's mostly the writedowns of "certain programming and other assets"? I'm not so sure, after bumping into my neighbor yesterday, who had a massive grin on his face after walking into Viacom HR and walking out with a severance package of 24 months' pay. If that offer's extended to Viacom employees generally, they might well find themselves with a too-many-voluntary-redundancies problem.

(HT: Wiesenthal)

Update: Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig just sent me a note saying that "the significant majority of the charge mentioned in the release is related to the asset writedown, not severance".

blog comments powered by Disqus
Real Business, Real Results
Out of the 'Family'

Did anyone at Microsoft ever watch the (gasp!) offensively funny show Family Guy?

Cruz Missile Lands

Ex-Morgan Stanley exec Zoe Cruz is now heading her own hedge fund. Are Wall Street's leaders done?

Scandal Chic

Martha, Bernie and Skilling know that what you wear for court can go a long way in public perception.

spotlight on

Health Care

Bad to the Bone No More

Companies such as General Mills say they're stepping up efforts to change employees' bad behavior and promote healthier lifestyles. Read More