Jonah Peretti: Last News

BuzzFeed is selling Complex to NTWRK for $108.6 million in cash plus $5.7 million for use of NYC office space, severance and other employee costs. It also announced a strategic restructuring including laying off 16% of its workforce that it expects will save $23 million a year.

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate‘s Lucy Hale comedy-mystery, F*** Marry Kill hit digital store shelves and PVOD this past Friday, Dec. 6 — then a few hours later disappeared. We heard all the noise from genre fans.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who disclosed a big stake in BuzzFeed last week, sent a letter to the online publisher’s board of directors asking for major changes from staffing and focus to the board makeup as well as an apology for previous reporting. CEO Jonah Peretti declined the mea culpa but agreed to meet with the former Republican presidential primary candidate and Donald Trump surrogate, whom he said has some “fundamental misunderstandings” of the company’s business.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed is changing the way it compensates founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who will now receive most of his pay package in stock, in addition to introducing new incentives for other top execs — a bid to persuade shareholders that the senior leaders will be better incentivized to turn things around at the struggling digital media company. In an SEC filing Friday, BuzzFeed said Peretti’s annual base salary was immediately reduced from $325,000 to $115,000, “which approximates the median employee compensation for BuzzFeed and its peers.” That will also reduce the annual cash bonus for which Peretti is eligible (the target amount of which remains 100% of his salary).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed’s revenue was down substantially in the first three months of 2023, dropping 27% in the period — and the company projected sales would be off as much as 29% for Q2. Given the decline, last month BuzzFeed announced it was shuttering its unprofitable BuzzFeed News division and laying off about 180 people across the organization, about 15% of its employee base. “We have reached an inflection point in digital media. Over the last few months, we have made significant strategic and organizational changes to position the business for long-term growth. Peretti continued, “By leaning into Creators and AI, I believe we can unlock new opportunities across our portfolio of trusted brands — including Tasty, First we Feast, Complex, HuffPost and BuzzFeed,” Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed founder and CEO, said in announcing the Q1 results.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday. The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people, across BuzzFeed News and other divisions. Going forward, BuzzFeed will concentrate its news efforts in a single profitable news organization — HuffPost, which it acquired from Verizon in 2020, per Peretti’s memo. The company’s flagship BuzzFeed.com site will remain in place. “While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we’ve determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization,” Peretti wrote.

BuzzFeed News, which earned as reputation as a scrappy news-breaking digital rival to legacy media brands, is shutting down.

BuzzFeed announced that it was cutting the size of its workforce by 12%, the latest media company to go through layoffs amid worsening economic conditions.

Jonah Peretti, founder and CEO of digital publisher BuzzFeed announced plans to downsize its news business amid the departure of several editors.

“Who are you uninterrupted? And what would the world look like if nothing ever stood in the way of Black and Latinx entrepreneurs building their companies and actualizing their dreams?“This is the question at the core of Black Ambition, a set of prizes established to fund bold ideas and companies led by Black and Latinx entrepreneurs.Founded by Pharrell Williams in 2020 and led by CEO Felecia Hatcher, Black Ambition empowers Black and Latinx innovators and communities to excel uninterrupted by connecting them with the capital they need to take their ideas to the next level. And applications for its second annual prize competition are now open as of today, Tuesday, March 22, 2022 at BlackAmbitionPrize.com. As Willams and Hatcher explained to ESSENCE, funding is key for all businesses, but often a near-impossible hurdle to jump for entrepreneurs from our communities. “I don’t know if you can be an entrepreneur without capital, right?” Hatcher said while talking about the foundation’s mission.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorBuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Mark Schoofs is stepping down, along with at least two other top editors, as the digital media company said it will be cutting jobs across the board.“After almost two rollicking and deeply fulfilling years as editor-in-chief, I’ve decided that it’s the right time to move on,” Schoofs wrote in an internal memo to staff Tuesday.In addition to Schoofs, BuzzFeed News deputy editor-in-chief Tom Namako announced that he is leaving to become executive editor of ‪NBC News‬⁩ Digital. In his memo, Schoofs had said Namako “would have been a natural successor” to take the EIC spot at BuzzFeed News.

BuzzFeed, hoping to forestall layoffs with an economic downturn of the COVID-19 pandemic already under way, is reducing the salaries of most employees. CEO Jonah Peretti said he won’t be taking any compensation until the crisis has passed.