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UPDATE: I hear the layoff announcements could come as soon as Thursday…
Another hour, another source telling me about layoffs and cutbacks. I’ve already told you about Viacom‘s and CBS Inc’s. And at Disney/ABC, don’t dare include alcohol in your expense account meal. Now hundreds of layoffs are planned at NBC Universal. 
In the meantime, NBC has issued new draconian network and studio budget parameters, a second wave of cost-cutting following up on Jeff Zucker’s promise a month ago to tighten belts across the board. Staff inside the company are outraged at these new measures, after already being told two weeks ago to cut their travel and entertainment spending as much as possible. “Staff under Zucker and Silverman feel like a hatchet was used when a scalpel was needed,” one source tells me. As of today:
– No staff is allowed to have personal printers. Printers in individual offices are being removed to save on toner and paper. All printing will be done from a central location for each department.
– Each week Jeff Zucker in conjunction with Human Resources will be reviewing overtime charged by assistants, permanent and temporary.
– Everyone including department and division heads must drop a class when traveling. No exceptions. For the Super Bowl in Tampa, all executives attending are to travel coach.
– Six-month freeze on office supply spending.
– Federal Express: No “priority” service or Saturday delivery permitted.
- Layoffs, Layoffs & More Viacom Layoffs
- ABC Joins NBC And CBS In Cutting Costs
- NBC And CBS Cut Staffing & Spending; Murdoch Says News Corp Prepared Well
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Tell ya what
If Jeff Zucker makes a good deal with the actors and starts paying new media residuals to writers in time for the SuperBowl, he can come to my house (I’ll even fly him here for free 1st class, I’ve got the frequent flier miles to do it) for a party, watch the game in the brand new media room in the basement in a brand new leather lounger of his choice in front of a spiffy new large HD TV and drink all the beer he wants and eat all the pizza he can on me. And I don’t even like the Super Bowl!!
But I get that these are tough economic times and I’ll do my bit to help NBC out…that is if he treats the actors and writers right in new media.
Otherwise it’s game off and NBC off and total economic jihad against NBC-Uni on.
Oh, and they may be flying coach, but they’re still going to the Super Bowl. Were any of the execs asked to give up those expensive box seats?
“All printing will be done from a central location for each department.” – NBC doesn’t seem to realize it still adds up to the same amount of paper and toner no matter where it is printed from. 60 scripts from 10 printers is the same paper etc. as 60 scripts from one printer….
Comment by ReelBusy — December 3, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
Centralized printing does save $. In two ways: Primarily, in that the large document center printers generally print at about half the money per copy than do the desktop units, Centralized printing also cuts down on people using the office printers to run off personal documents.
These savings are maybe a couple hundred bucks a day. Which is the pay of a couple newbies who might get to keep their jobs, instead of getting axed, but not enough to save a company the size of NBC/Uni.
Santayana is right, sorry Joseph. I have seen this happen first hand. I was on a tv show and my dalies came to me titled with last years failed show name. They were still trying to charge losses to the old show to make the new show look under budget. I work features and tv and it happens all the time. No matter tv or film the studio charges up to 4 times the actual rate for things that happen on the lot. Very common practice.
Free superbowl? Are you stealing your cable/satellite feed? Are YOU why all these cutbacks are needed?
Really. Don’t buy staples and turn the business around? Until the upper management is made accountable and has to cut their own salaries, there won’t be any real change.
Isn’t it the job of the corporate officers to increase shareholder value? If they aren’t doing that, they should get their pay/bonuses/expenses whacked.
Isn’t that what a board of directors is supposed to do?
Meanwhile, don’t throw away those brads and maybe we should start printing on the blank side of the page of recycled scripts and let’s all start drinking folgers instead of starbucks.
Now, with HR bearing down on the overtime worked by assistants, does that mean a shorter work week for them or just a lot more off-the-clock time?
I’ve seen this happen elsewhere in the corporate universe. It’s great for nailing clock-riders but more often seems to mutate into getting paid for 40 hours when you’ve worked 60 or 80.
I agree about the staples. I have needed a staple just once–once–this year. Office supplies are over stockpiled in most employees’ desks.
As for printers, presumably that’s to cut down on illicit printing of resumes and personal papers? Because otherwise it makes no sense. Are they going to yard sale the personal printers outside the building? Join the rest of the world. Lots of yard sales and no buyers.
(To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town)
They’re makin’ fair deals
The full-page ads claim
But the truth is: They “bargain” in vain
Nick Counter is reamin’ the town!
They’re pullin’ some strings
Thousands of legs, too
“Give up, please, sheep; the net is too new”
Nick Counter is reamin’ the town!
He knows all your pressure points
Acupuncture points, too
He plays you like a violin
Pitting you against your crew
Oh…
They’re drawin’ their belts
A vagrancy feign
A true PR coup: Poor moguls in pain
Nick Counter is reamin’ the town!
Nick Counter is reamin’ … the town!
Printing from a centralized Xerox machine can cost something like 2-3¢ per sheet sheet (around 6¢ if color), whereas a single large printer at each desk can cost around 15¢ per sheet (35¢ if color). That’s why News Corp pushed many subsidiaries to move to centralized printing last year. So yes, it can save money.
What really matters is if it’s enforced. Too often, executives make excuses on why they’re the exceptions, and too many machines end up on desks. So just a few lower-end coordinators and assistants get their printers removed – the ones who have to crank out giant reports everyday and would actually benefit from not tying up the group machine.
Seen all of this before, sadly; every time there was a strike. Used to be the xerox machines would go. Leave one on every other floor of the Black Tower. So “efficient” to make the assistant abandon the phones to find a machine without a line waiting to use it than assume he/she would NOT make the rounds of friends on that floor to chat. Genius bean-counters.
And, what about those printers being removed… do they go into storage somewhere or will they be part of a lunch time “yard sale” outside the Commissary to raise cash ?
I just want to know if Ron Meyer still has four assistants… one of whom makes $100K a year just to buy gifts for the “talent”.
As the vast majority of scripts NBC churns out are not worth the paper they are printed on, does confiscating printers actually save any money?
…oh, but this will never, ever top the fabled “Carolco Milk Memo”…
I find it appalling that they are laying off people and in the same sentence talking about going to the Super Bowl. First class or coach, I wonder how many salaries could be paid by those tickets, not too mention their hotels rooms and undoubtedly meals as well. Disgusting!
This is both typical and ridiculous.
Years ago when I worked at NBC you knew the ratings were bad when they started making you write down how many xerox copies you were making. Today it’s printing paper and overworked Kelly Girls that are the first targets of cutback scrutiny. Top execs who are making these calls never look at the big ticket items that could actually make a fiscal difference because cutting any of them might impact their own comforts.
If Jeff Zucker is going to spend a second of his day looking at temp employees overtime sheets the network is in worse shape than even I imagined.
Personally, someone can wind up with the wrong paper if centralized printers are used. On the other hand, they do save money.
But I really want to ask this. What if the actors do go out on strike? Since it is pretty much clear that every NBC executive that works at Burbank and 30 Rock is going to be in Tampa Bay, wouldn’t players of the two Super Bowl teams be compelled to not play the game unless legal issues force the game to be played? Also, wouldn’t there be empty seats from fans pressured to not attend the game because attending the game would mean crossing the SAG picket line while fans at home would be encouraged to listen to the game via the radio so that NBC’s ratings would be inpacted by the people refusing to watch a struck network. That wouldn’t matter anyway because all the entertainment scheduled for the game is The South Florida University Marching Band because SAG persuaded Bruce Springsteen and Faith Hill to not take part in the game’s entertainment. And here is the final kicker for NBC, the two teams scheduled for Super Bowl 43 are the Minnesota Vikings (who haven’t been in the game since losing Super Bowl 11 to the Raiders), and the New York Jets (who’s last appearance was a victory in Super Bowl 3). I don’t know about the Jets but the Vikings are one of the hottest teams in the NFL as of right now and could easily roll to a Super Bowl berth the way they are playing.
As for the executives, they don’t fly coach. At least not Jeff Zucker or Ben Silverman. They likely have their own learjet.
Nice to see NBC-Universal come in line with what every other division of GE has been dealing with for months.
For what it’s worth, I once saw Jeff Zucker on a JetBlue flight from Burbank to New York, and those seats are all coach.
I just hope this doesn’t screw up heroes!
“Wow… that’s a finger in the dyke.
Comment by DB — December 4, 2008 @ 5:46 am”
How are they going to do that, since the “Rosie: Live!” show won’t be a series?
Doug has apparently forgotten that the Super Bowl is available free with rabbit ears on NBC.
it’s worth mention, that in 2004, NBC issued the same “no personal printers” edict, even stopping by to put pink labels on the printers to designate them for collection.
In early 2006, Zucker sent a company-wide email, that among other things (that I don’t recall), they wouldn’t be paying for company sodas anymore.
Zucker is the devil, no doubt. And these changes are going to make working at nbc less comfortable.
But perhaps the whole lot should be ejected. Their shows suck. Period.
No free sodas? There still are plenty at the Peacock, just fewer employees to drink them.
Best part about the “no personal printer” edict of ’04 and the “no more company sodas” edict of ’06, is in perfect form, NBC wasn’t successful in either.
Numerous people cried foul over printers and they relented on the soda and goodies.
The whole attitude has changed in recent years at NBC. It is all about return on investment now. Rather than employees and contractors making (and spending) lots of money, it is about the executives making it big before getting out. Rather than a few great shows that lots of people watched, it is lots of crap that few people watch. We have become a bunch of assembly line workers instead of the tight creative group that love our job and the company we work for. GE now has another light bulb factory… soon to be outsourced.