Al Gore’s Current Media cuts 80 jobs

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Al Gore’s Current Media cuts 80 jobs
November 12th, 2009 - 10:44 UTC
by Andy Sennitt.

Current Media, a cable television company co-founded by former US vice president Al Gore, announced yesterday that it is cutting 80 jobs as part of a reorganization. The layoffs, which will leave Current with some 300 employees worldwide, come seven months after the San Francisco-based startup shelved plans for a 100-million-dollar initial public offering, citing market conditions.
In a statement, Current said it was canceling several television programmes and shifting the focus of its programming away from short-form content to longer formats. “As a result of these cancellations, and the shift away from a reliance on daily in-house production, Current Media eliminated 80 positions worldwide associated with the affected programmes and related support personnel,” it said.

“This re-organization was not the result of a need to cut costs,” the statement stressed. “Current Media will have its most profitable year. This financial stability will allow the company to re-allocate resources in order to put further emphasis on areas of the business believed to best position Current Media for continued long-term growth,” Current said.

Current Media, founded in 2005, operates Current TV, which reaches more than 50 million households in Britain and the United States, and a youth-focused website Current.com, where users can submit their own content. In March, two American reporters for Current TV, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were detained by North Korea while reporting along North Korea’s border with China. They were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and “hostile acts” but were pardoned and released in August following a visit to Pyongyang by former US president Bill Clinton.

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Current TV switching off the juice
Chris Forrester
12-11-2009

Current Media, the Al Gore-backed TV channel and website that’s youth-focused with a strong environmental bent and encourages user-generated content, is laying off 80 staff.

The company, in a statement, stressed the company is not financially stressed and that the positions were not eliminated to save cash. “Current Media will have its most profitable year. This financial stability will allow the company to re-allocate resources in order to put further emphasis on areas of the business believed to best position Current Media for continued long-term growth," Current said.

Current Media pulled a $100m IPO earlier this year citing the economic downturn. The company says it is shifting its content from short-form programming to longer-form material. It still has some 300 staffers worldwide.

In March, two of its employees, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were detained by North Korea while reporting along North Korea's border with China. They were released following a visit by former president Bill Clinton.