AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT TECHNICOLOR

Paris, France-based Technicolor, the iconic color motion picture film processor and now a French multinational corporation that provides services and products for the communication, media, and entertainment industries, has announced layoffs at its CD/DVD Disc manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The layoffs will impact 100 employees. According to employees, the plant was to be closed in 2019

It appears that Technicolor wants to exit the Disc manufacturing business.

Coincidently, France-basedTechnicolor Home Entertainment announced that they will be closing their one-million-square-foot Olyphant Pennsylvania compact disc duplication and packaging plant and laying off the remaining workers in 2018. Approximately 160 workers are affected. Technicolor's spokesperson, Lane Coope, said in a published report, “In an ongoing assessment of market conditions and operational requirements to remain competitive in our key areas of business, Technicolor will be ceasing packaging and replication operations at its Olyphant facility.”

The real issue is a disruption in Tehnicolor's business model that sees CD/DVDs being obsoleted by on-demand streaming technologies.

In June 2020, Technicolor announced that it has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy which allows a foreign debtor to file for bankruptcy in the United States court system. Technicolor attributed its financial problems to the COVID-19 pandemic and noted, “Compounding matters, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused theatrical releases to be put on hold and production timelines to be pushed back, significantly depressing Technicolor’s revenue from production services."

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT CONDÉ NAST

New York, New York-based Condé Nast, the international media and publishing company, has announced a reduction in force affecting approximately 100 employees and furloughing another 100 employees. Executives and other highly-paid individuals are expected to take a pay cut. CEO Roger Lynch who joined the company in 2019 from his former position as the CEO of Oakland, California-based Pandora, the well-known music selection and streaming service, messaged employees...

To our Condé Nast team,

"As I’ve shared in my recent emails, we’ve been working to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on our business and to reset our financial plan for the year. That work has involved modeling several different scenarios. While we aren’t as solely dependent on print and digital display advertising as some of our competitors, globally, we will still see a substantial impact from this crisis on our business. The ELT and I recognize it’s very likely our advertising clients, consumers, and therefore our company, will be operating under significant financial pressure for some time. As a result, we’ll need to go beyond the initial cost savings measures we put in place to protect our business for the long term."

"Potential job and role eliminations: Many of you have been asking whether there will be any job eliminations. While we consider it a last option, we do expect there will be some role eliminations as part of these efforts. We’ve already closed several hundred open positions and limited hiring only to the most critical roles. Role eliminations are never something we take lightly, and we’ll continue to work to limit this as much as possible."

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT MASHABLE

Mashable, a blog created by Pete Cashmore in 2005 and  turned into a digital media company, has been acquired by Ziff-Davis, itself a digital media company owned by cloud services company J2 Global, for a bargain price of $50 million. According to the company, the acquisition  will result in the layoff of at least 50 employees. Future plans for Mashable are said to include a return to the tech world with an emphasis on the tech lifestyle.

Considering the fate of other so-called digital media companies, one wonders how long such a company can exist on click-bait headlines and relatively free aggregated content monetized by affiliate advertising links and keyword advertising. As long as venture capitalists are gambling on high-profile founders and their media companies, the bubble may sustain itself for a year or so until crushed by the likes of Google, Facebook, and other large-audience entities.