An employee published a scathing announcement shortly after Valence Media cut Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter’s entire IT staff Tuesday.
Valence Media, the parent company of The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, began layoffs Tuesday that were deemed “difficult” and “necessary measure to remain strong for our employees and partners” amid the novel coronavirus crisis.
A now-deleted scathing announcement on Billboard from Tuesday evening appeared to come from one of the recently laid off staffers.
“In the wake of Covid19 pandemic, Valence Media has decided to lay off their entire web IT staff,” the deleted announcement read. “Effective today. The online Billboard Charts are essentially perfect, so IT staff are no longer needed. Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life…#SavingABuckAtYourExpense.”
When lay off your IT staff there are consequences. pic.twitter.com/s4mfqNMV0P
— Yashar Ali ???? (@yashar) April 15, 2020
Another deleted version of Billboard’s announcement read “Cheers!” after informing readers that all IT staff had been laid off. (RELATED: These Are The Online Media Companies That Unionized, Then Laid Off Huge Numbers Of Journalists)
“Each of our divisions was affected differently, dependent on the specifics of the business,” Valence Media co-CEOs Asif Satchu and Modi Wiczyk wrote in an internal memo Tuesday, according to Deadline. “The greatest impact was on our Media division, which underwent layoffs and a restructuring, part of which was a response to advertising market conditions and part of which was an acceleration of actions that were planned for 2020-2021.”
“For all those who transitioned out of the company, we provided severance packages which included six months of extended health care, among other benefits.”