Sony Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Media Division - The UpStream

Sony Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Media Division

posted Sunday Mar 23, 2014 by Nicholas DiMeo

Sony Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Media Division

After Sony's rejection of spinning off the media division in order to possibly save the company, CEO Kaz Hirai then had to cut $250 million from the media budget, which meant a reduction in movie releases for the year. Now, after another grueling loss in profits and revenue, Sony is laying off hundreds of employees in the division.

The terminations are happening at the California TV and film studio just outside of Los Angeles. In total 216 Sony employees will have to find new work and the company's interactive and digital marketing teams appear to have been hit the hardest. Sony started notifying employees of the layoffs this week and should have been done by Friday. This is after the company ended the employment of Chris Cookson, president of Sony Pictures Technologies, and Mitch Singer, the chief digital strategy officer for UltraViolet storage, back in January.

Sony spokesperson Charles Sipkins said in an email statement that, "We (Sony) are continuously evolving the business to make Sony Pictures Entertainment more efficient and competitive."

Now that Sony rejected a plan that could have possibly avoided this mess, are people still confident in the ability of its media division to pull through? More so, is Sony going to be around in five years? Things are looking bleak as it stands, with the consumer electronics division not doing well, however the one saving grace is the strong sales of Sony's latest gaming console, the PlayStation 4.

Can the momentum of the gaming unit keep the entire company afloat? So many questions and only time will give way to the answers. However, we're curious to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

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