Current Media, a cable television company co-founded by former US vice president Al Gore, announced Wednesday that it is cutting 80 jobs as part of a reorganization. The layoffs, which will leave Current with some 300 employees worldwide, come seven months after the San Francisco-based startup shelved plans for a 100-million-dollar initial public offering, citing market conditions.
In a statement on Wednesday, Current said it was canceling several television programs and shifting the focus of its programming away from short-form content to longer formats.
"As a result of these cancellations, and the shift away from a reliance on daily in-house production, Current Media eliminated 80 positions worldwide associated with the affected programs and related support personnel," it said.
"This re-organization was not the result of a need to cut costs," the statement stressed. "Current Media will have its most profitable year.
"This financial stability will allow the company to re-allocate resources in order to put further emphasis on areas of the business believed to best position Current Media for continued long-term growth," Current said.
Current Media, founded in 2005, operates Current TV, which reaches more than 50 million households in Britain and the United States, and a youth-focused website Current.com, where users can submit their own content.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/13/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Current TV may reach 50 million homes but does it even have 5 viewers?
back in 2007, the company lost $10M on $63M of revenue and their viewership is unknown. They've gotten on various cable listings by virtue of Gore's celebrity status. They have been hoping to do an IPO but the market isn't right given it is almost completely speculative.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/13/2009 8:49 Comments ||
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#4
Current TV sounds like radio's Air America--nobody watches or listens to it because it is boring and vacuous.
#5
My kids suggest that Current Tv is a lame version of youtube in that its essence is youtube type videos chosen by some moron and slammed in your face.
#13
Didn't the two fools recently rescued by Prez Clinton in NKorea work for this network?
That's what I seem to recall, too, Tom-PA. Current was supposed to be revolutionary, a "People's cable channel", like Wikipedia is a "people's encyclopedia".
(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said he hasn't discussed becoming chief executive officer at Bank of America Corp. with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender.
"I can confirm I have not spoken with them," Corzine said today in an interview outside the Sacred Heart Basilica in Newark where he attended a mass for slain police officers. Corzine, who lost a bid for re-election to Christopher Christie, declined to say if he's interested in returning to Wall Street after leaving office next year.
"I've been reading books and never really thought about that," he said. As for his post-gubernatorial plans, "I haven't given it a great deal of thought, and when I figure it out you'll be the first to know," he said.
Bank of America, the biggest U.S. bank by assets and deposits, is searching for a CEO to replace Kenneth D. Lewis, who is retiring next month. Speculation on successors has included Corzine, 62, who left Goldman in 1999 as the firm went public. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, and resigned after winning the governor's race in November 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/13/2009 00:00 ||
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If he's smart he'll run the other way, it's a deathtrap.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/13/2009 13:07 Comments ||
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But is a damn comfortable deathtrap at $25 million/year. Of course, nothing like what Corzine got a Goldman-Sachs.
Posted by: ed ||
11/13/2009 13:12 Comments ||
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#3
I know Bank of America is stupid, but Corzine?
Yeesh.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/13/2009 17:32 Comments ||
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#4
Hey, they bought Merril Lynch - they are that stupid.
I hadn't heard of anyone on the right complaining about Craig, so I suspect this is a leftist scalp...
The news release does say that Craig has been expected to go, but it rather craftily leaves no asides.
White House Counsel Greg Craig is expected to announce on Friday that he plans to step down from his post following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.
Craig did not agree with Bambi's decision to try KSM and company in civilian court.
I think Bambi's fall will be percepitated by the circus that the KSM trial will become. Such niceties as Miranda warnings and torture and waterboarding and classified sources and having covert CIA operatives having to blow their cover to testify, etc.,
The man really has no clue and these trials will be the death knell for Bambi's presidency, he will be the longest lame duck in the history of this country.
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
11/13/2009 10:54 Comments ||
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#4
Obama "acted stupidly" (Guantanamo closure) and Craig is taking the fall.
Posted by: ed ||
11/13/2009 12:15 Comments ||
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#5
Will Anita "Mao's my main man" Dunn's husband Robert Bauer replace Craig?.
Yep. In the first shakeup of the Obama White House, counsel Greg Craig resigned Friday and was replaced by President Barack Obama's personal lawyer, Bob Bauer.
In the words of the immortal Trashmen: Mao, Mao, Mao.
Posted by: ed ||
11/13/2009 12:39 Comments ||
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#6
Guy didn't get the memo-
NEVER beat the boss in golf...
The man was complaining about the cost of the 50,000 extra troops the generals want, after the $770 Pork Out Act, after $1T Obamacare, and the talks already of Pork Out Act II in the wind.
#7
"After spending binge, White House says it will focus on deficits"
Yeah - making more of them. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/13/2009 17:34 Comments ||
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#8
What better way to kick off Barack Obamas first full budget year as President than with a deficit that exceeded the White Houses own projections as well as analysts expectations? The federal government busted the budget worse than last October by $20 billion with a deficit of $176.36 billion for the month. That used to be considered a decent deficit target for an entire year:
Attaboy commies. Tractor Deficit production at a new all time high. Hero of the Motherland awards for all.
Posted by: ed ||
11/13/2009 18:27 Comments ||
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BTW, the Fed's spending was $311.69 billion in October and tax collection was $135.33 billion for a ratio of 2.3 dollars spent for every dollar taken in. The Obama administration is truly going to fuck the nation well before it can be voted out of office.
Posted by: ed ||
11/13/2009 19:35 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is considering a proposal to increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income workers to help offset the costs of providing health insurance to millions of Americans, Senate aides said Thursday.
The proposal is part of a legislative package that Mr. Reid has put together in secrecy and submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis.
Mr. Reid is apparently considering an increase in the Medicare payroll tax rate for workers with incomes of more than $250,000 a year, Senate aides said. One idea is to increase the tax rate by one-half of 1 percentage point, to 1.95 percent for high-income people, with an expectation that the government could raise $40 billion to $50 billion over 10 years.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly said that under his administration, people making less than $250,000 a year would not see any of their taxes increased. Mr. Reid has several reasons for considering an increase in the payroll tax, a development first reported by The Associated Press on Wednesday night. He is seeking money to provide more extensive subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people buy insurance. A bill passed Saturday by the House would provide $602 billion in subsidies over 10 years, while a measure approved last month by the Senate Finance Committee would provide $461 billion.
The biggest source of new revenue proposed by the Finance Committee is a tax on high-premium group health insurance provided by employers to their employees. Mr. Reid is looking for an alternative to that tax, or a way to reduce it, because it is anathema to many labor unions, a major constituency of the Democratic Party. Labor leaders say the proposed tax on Cadillac health plans would hit many middle-income workers whose unions have sacrificed wage increases to secure or retain health benefits.
Steven M. Kreisberg, director of collective bargaining and health care policy at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said an increase in the payroll tax on high-income people was far preferable to the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans.
At a time of rising inequality in income and wealth, Mr. Kreisberg said, it is appropriate to ask those who make more to bear a greater burden.
Democrats said an increase in the payroll tax had an additional advantage: some of the money could shore up the Medicare trust fund, which is expected to run out of money in 2017.
Several Democratic senators have urged Mr. Reid to propose extending the Medicare payroll tax to income other than wages, like capital gains, dividends and rental income. Such a change could generate substantial revenue from higher-income households, who tend to derive a greater share of their income from sources other than wages.
The House also wants more money from affluent people. The House-passed bill would raise $460 billion over the next decade from a new income surtax. The surtax would equal 5.4 percent of adjusted gross income exceeding $1 million for couples and $500,000 for individuals.
#1
Great way to ensure that lots of high income types won't contribute to the Dem congressional committees next cycle ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/13/2009 15:02 Comments ||
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A lot of people in the upper economic area take stock options, trust fund payouts, and get capital gains, thus avoiding 'income' that can be subject to 'withholding' taxes. Fortunately, we can call this the Reid Hollyweird Star and Athletic Redistribution Act.
Cue: Laugh Track, Rubber Car Horn
Representatives for ACORN sued the federal government Thursday morning in an attempt to regain the millions of dollars in funding the community organizing group lost after filmmakers videotaped its workers offering advice on how to commit tax fraud and various other felonies. That wacky Congress...
The suit charges Congress with violating the Constitution when it passed legislation in September that specifically targeted ACORN to lose federal housing, education and transportation funds. ACORN was written into the Constitution- who knew? (honk honk) Continued on Page 49
#1
They can take a place in line behind the states [federal withholding for compliance] or the universities [federal withholding for compliance], et al. However, never underestimate the lust for power of the judiciary to seize the purse given the opportunity. How Congress spends the purse is their prerogative till then. [The last one who pushed the point sort of lost his head over it.]
#7
LOL they are swinging blindly. They would do better to take a step back and get their house in order. The concept is not bad it's the what it has become taht is bad.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Current Media, a cable television company co-founded by former US vice president Al Gore, announced Wednesday that it is cutting 80 jobs as part of a reorganization. The layoffs, which will leave Current with some 300 employees worldwide, come seven months after the San Francisco-based startup shelved plans for a 100-million-dollar initial public offering, citing market conditions.
(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said he hasn't discussed becoming chief executive officer at Bank of America Corp. with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender. 
