NBCUniversal to Lay Off Workers

NBCUniversal is set to start a series of layoffs after the corporation announced its plan to spin off several of its cable networks into a new company.

The Comcast-owned NBC is moving several of its popular cable networks, including E!, USA Network, Oxygen, and SyFy, into a new company known as SpinCo.

The layoffs were described to Deadline as “surgical” instead of “sweeping,” and will affect NBC proper, various cable networks, the streaming service Peacock, and the corporation’s studio staff—however, the majority of cuts are marketing and communications jobs or junior staff in the programming department.

Staff cuts aren’t the only changes NBC is making while restructuring its properties into SpinCo; the corporation shut down a long-running children’s channel that had been running since 2005, originally as a joint venture with PBS and Sesame Workshop.

At SpinCo, Val Boreland was named President of Entertainment. She previously served as Head of Content Acquisitions for NBCUniversal.

The channels under the SpinCo umbrella don’t run as many shows as NBC proper, but still have plenty of original content that draws in millions of viewers.

Two staff members already on their way out after the SpinCo move are former Peacock President Kelly Campbell and NBC’s former EVP of Unscripted Content Corie Henson.