INBRIEF
Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/2/2000
MTVi reorganizes
MTVi has eliminated 105 positions, or 25% of its work force, and will not move forward with its IPO.
The unit, which brings together separate Internet businesses for MTV, VH1, SonicNet and Country.com, will support all the sites from one common platform. For example, many of the eliminated positions are in the online news content side, as the company looks to centralize four separate news organizations into one entity.
"When you're consolidating four different businesses it just makes sense to look at how you can do things more efficiently," says an MTV representative. "We're continuing with this unit, and MTV is very supportive of MTVi. We're also going to look at ways to share resources with MTV Networks and all of Viacom."
The representative notes that MTVi expects to double last year's revenue of $19.9 million. Page views have also nearly doubled, hitting 171 million through July. "There's still a huge opportunity for the online music space," the representative adds.
