Netflix Lays Off Staff At It’s Editorial Division “Tudum”

OTT streaming giant, Netflix has laid off a few of its editorial staff presently working at its in-house publication “Tudum”. Tudum was launched last year and it has been barely five months in operation.

Netflix has refused to share more details pertaining to the layoffs except that Tudum is not closing down as of now. Around eight writers have expressed their anguish on the social media platform Twitter that they were laid off.

Netflix is also making changes in its marketing department by elevating a few important executives and simultaneously eliminating many positions. Out of its 500 plus global marketing team, 25 people will be laid off.

Netflix is laying off staff at Tudum in just 5 months of its launch

Jonathan Helfgot, vice president of U.S. and Canada film marketing, and Shelly Gillyard, vice president of U.S. and Canada series marketing were promoted to co-lead the company’s U.S. and Canada marketing division. Lucinda Martinez, vice president of global brand and multicultural marketing, has made up her mind to quit Netflix and start her own multicultural consulting firm.

A Netflix spokesperson said in a statement, “Our fan website Tudum is an important priority for the company”. Given the opportunity and low remuneration in traditional journalism jobs, Netflix has hired many talented journalists from the top publications in online media in the recent past.

These quick hire and fire have put historically overlooked writers in a vulnerable position. Traditionally, the media business takes time for growth and in the case of Netflix seems like employees let go before they could actually get an opportunity to build a new publication from the ground up.

Netflix loses 200K subscribers

While some of its competitors like Disney+ and HBO Max registered growth in the recent quarter, Netflix is struggling to get new subscribers on its platform. In the recent quarterly results published by Netflix, the company in fact lost more than 200,000 subscribers. The streaming platform company registered slow revenue growth which took a toll on its share price.

Netflix however tried to calm the nerves of investors and stakeholders saying the company is committed to ensuring operating margins are between 19% to 20% in the near future. Netflix delivered some hit shows like “Inventing Anna,” “Squid Game” and “Bridgerton” on its platform.

Laid-off employees express their angst on social media

Netflix employees expressed their angst on social media on Thursday after they came to know about the layoffs.

“Just got laid off from Netflix/Tudum, effective today. Email me with opportunities at reinasultan@gmail.com so I can pay my rent and help my parents survive! A bunch of my incredible colleagues got laid off, too. You’d be incredibly lucky to work with any of them,” posted one employee on Twitter.

Just got laid off from Netflix/Tudum, effective today. Email me with opportunities at reinasultan@gmail.com so I can pay my rent and help my parents survive!

A bunch of my incredible colleagues got laid off, too. You’d be incredibly lucky to work with any of them.

— Reina Sultan (she/her) (@SultanReina) April 28, 2022

“Uh oh! Looks like I have to do this tweet again. Is anyone hiring? Netflix just laid off my team (my job included). It was an incredible few months and I’m grateful for it but I’m stoked about whatever’s next. Email is in bio,” another employee tweeted.

Netflix has increased the prices recently and introduced features that will cost more for sharing account credentials. However, post the quarterly result announcement it appears that the company might scale down its new content marketing business.

Netflix confirmed that layoffs affected not only contract workers but also full-time employees, however, it did not reveal if other divisions at Netflix were affected.

Stay tuned for more news!