Paramount axes TV, finance and business & legal affairs staff

Paramount Pictures has axed around 20 staffers from its television, finance and business & legal affairs teams, according to reports.

The details of the layoffs were laid out in a memo from Andrew Gumpert, COO at Paramount.

“Today we are making some changes across the organization, which will impact the Finance, Legal, Business & Legal Affairs and Television teams,” said Gumpert.

“While this transformation impacts a very small number of our work force, it was difficult nonetheless, and we extend our most sincere thanks to the affected team members for their contributions, and wish them the very best in their future endeavors.”

Gumpert said the layoffs will be taking place after “Viacom kicked off a significant transformation effort to ensure we’re running our business as efficiently as we can – to both save more money, and ensure we can invest in new areas of growth.”

The news arrives on the same day that Paramount announced promotions and a hire in its TV division.

Debra Bergaman was upped to executive VP and head of physical education, Ken Basin to executive VP of business affairs. Robert West was hired as vice president of production.

The news was first reported by Variety.

Here is Gumpert’s note in full:

Dear All,

As you all are aware, a year ago Viacom kicked off a significant transformation effort to ensure we’re running our business as efficiently as we can – to both save more money, and ensure we can invest in new areas of growth. With that comes some exciting, but also necessary changes, including for our studio. In pursuit of this mandate, we have taken a thoughtful and comprehensive look at the organization on an overall, holistic level, and identified where we can make our processes more efficient and better utilize our workforce and resources to maximize success for the company as a whole.

This transformation is not painless and comes with some hard decisions that we feel are necessary to move our business forward. As a consequence, today we are making some changes across the organization, which will impact the Finance, Legal, Business & Legal Affairs and Television teams. While this transformation impacts a very small number of our work force, it was difficult nonetheless, and we extend our most sincere thanks to the affected team members for their contributions, and wish them the very best in their future endeavors.

As an organization, we continue on a trajectory of renewal and reinvigoration, and I am proud and optimistic to reflect on all we have achieved in the past year and the growth and continued transformation that I see in our future.

Thank you for being valued members of this company, and working together to ensure a bright future for us all.

Best,

Andrew