CNN expanded its digital team by 200 employees in the past 18
months, but now is looking to pare back on its 600-person unit.
Multiple media outlets report CNN is planning to let go of around 50 people later this week as it looks to cut new digital
projects that haven’t “paid off," Matt Dornic, CNN's vice president, communications, told Vanity Fair.
The cuts are part of a restructuring, CNN said, and some
employees will be moved into new roles. “Organizations that do not make big bets and continuously evolve are the ones that fail,” Dornic added.
Vanity Fair reports the
cuts will affect employees who work in verticals like CNN Money, as well as the video, product, tech and social-publishing departments. CNN’s virtual reality productions and its Snapchat efforts
will be scaled back.
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Last month, CNN shut down Beme, the video-sharing app it paid $25 million for in late 2016. CNN, like digital-native news
outlets BuzzFeed and Vice, fell short of revenue projections last year.
CNN
launched CNN Travel and CNN Tech last summer. They joined other digital verticals, such as CNN Politics, CNN Media and CNNMoney, in a bid to produce content that focuses on specific categories, rather
than breaking news.