No Good Time To Do This

Michael Hedges July 10, 2019 Follow on Twitter

Employment is an established measure of economic stability. Jobs are more personal. There was a bit of schadenfreude in news reports at the beginning of the week with hundreds of bankers streaming out of impressive buildings sobbing, carrying the personal possessions that once decorated the cubical, heading to the nearest bar. Big banks, these days, are not universally loved. The worst time for terminations, say human resources experts, is just before holidays. But, sometimes, the human resources people are the first to go.

Staff of French TV operator Canal+ were advised of “voluntary departures” by executive chairman Maxime Saada, reported Le Monde (July 9). After the appropriate negotiations with unions 18% of the workforce - 492 jobs - will begin leaving the company after the first of next year. About half are TV production jobs.

Canal+, subsidiary of Vivendi, continues to bleed subscribers. “Despite the commercial overhaul, with offers at €20, we have not been able to stem the fall in results,” said the boss. “With this plan, we want to prepare the future in the face of globalized and monothematic actors, with, on the one hand, specialists in series and cinema and, on the other, sports.”

In other words, the Disney Plus and yet-to-be-named Apple streaming services will arrive this fall and Netflix is still romping. And there is Amazon Prime TV and, yet to come, Salto, the joint venture of Tf1, French public TV and M6/RTL. There are others. Many.

Conventional wisdom is clear, courtesy of Le Monde. “Netflix does better with less: at the end of 2018 it had 7,100 employees and 139 million subscribers worldwide (while) Canal+ had 2,600 employees and 7.8 million subscribers.” The annual content budget for Canal+ is about €2 billion a year and includes sports rights. Netflix is spending about €13 billion a year.

Earlier in the week Sky Deutschland chief executive Carsten Schmidt circulated an email, reported DWDL.de (July 8), confirming the current “reorganization” will lead to job cuts in the “low double digit” range. Several Sky Deutschland executives have exited in recent weeks, including Executive Vice President of Operations Sebastian Hauptmann. Sky Deutschland employs about 2,000 in Bavaria, tempering the company’s tenth anniversary.

Sky Deutschland was formally integrated with parent Sky plc four years ago, then principally owned by 21st Century Fox. That changed last year as Sky plc was acquired by US telecom Comcast. In recent months, a bigger level of integration has begun as Sky international operations and distribution are folded into Comcast’s NBCUniversal International subsidiary. This has largely involved ad sales. In June Dutch telecom KPN chief executive Maximo Ibarra was hired as Sky Italia chief executive.

Fox Networks Group confirmed it is shedding 42 employees in Italy as it moves operational headquarters for Fox Italia from Rome to Milan, reports affaritaliani.it (July 9). The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox assets, including Fox Networks Group, for US$71.3 billion last year. Executives, mostly on the Fox side, have been trickling out in the last few months. Disney chief executive Bob Iger suggested US$2 billion in savings would be forthcoming, which deadline.com (April 17) translated as 4,000 jobs.

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