NBC News Cuts 150 Employees

NBC News is preparing for its largest round of layoffs in years, with about 150 employees expected to lose their jobs this week as the network adjusts to life without its cable siblings MSNBC and CNBC, according to a report.

The job cuts, expected to begin Wednesday and continue through Thursday, will hit roughly 7% of the 2,000-person news division, Status reported.

Staffers at NBC News headquarters are “dreading what’s to come,” a 30 Rock insider told Status.

The looming layoffs come as parent company Comcast prepares to spin off MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network and several other cable and digital properties into a new publicly traded company called Versant by the end of the year.

The restructuring has already triggered waves of smaller cuts across the NBC News operation in recent weeks.

Late last month, fewer than a dozen employees in NBC’s graphics department — which had supported both MSNBC and NBC News — were laid off as part of an early reorganization ahead of the Versant split.

That move, also first reported by Status, was described internally as the “first casualties” of the divorce between NBC News and its cable counterparts.

Last week, NBC News began a legally required “consultation phase” in its London bureau, the first step toward layoffs there. The move was widely interpreted by employees as a sign of deeper cuts ahead.

Inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the mood has darkened. Several insiders told Status that speculation about who will be affected has dominated internal chats for days.

NBC News has been trimming around the edges in anticipation of the deeper cuts, insiders told Status, but the network’s workforce will need to shrink substantially now that it will no longer provide shared resources to MSNBC and CNBC.

Beginning Oct. 20, NBC News journalists will stop appearing on MSNBC, formally ending a decades-long partnership that once blended the two operations.

Joint editorial meetings will cease, and MSNBC will no longer share reporting or production infrastructure with the broadcast division — except for access to NBC’s Decision Desk through the end of the election year.

The split marks the end of a long and sometimes uneasy relationship between the Peacock Network’s hard-news operation and its opinion-heavy cable offshoot.

MSNBC will shed both the “NBC” name and the iconic peacock logo when it rebrands in November as MS NOW, moving into new studios in Times Square.

Executives have promised to expand reporting and strengthen editorial independence, even as the network’s newsroom and technical operations are rebuilt from scratch under Versant.

CNBC, which has always operated more autonomously than MSNBC, will also become part of Versant but keep its business-focused identity and branding.

Versant, slated to debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol VSNT, will bundle together Comcast’s cable entertainment channels — including E!, Syfy, Bravo, Golf Channel and Oxygen — along with digital platforms such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and GolfNow.

Comcast said the transaction will be tax-free for shareholders, who will receive Versant stock directly.

Versant is projected to start with around $7 billion in annual revenue and relatively little debt, providing a stable base as it spins off from Comcast’s broader media empire.

The new company will be led by Mark Lazarus, the longtime NBCUniversal executive who most recently ran the company’s TV and streaming operations.

Comcast will retain its broadcast network, streaming platform Peacock, Spanish-language outlet Telemundo, Universal Studios and theme parks — the growth engines in broadband and entertainment.

NBCUniversal, which will continue to house NBC News, is expected to focus more heavily on streaming, studio production and live events once the spinoff is complete.