Last.FM Hit By Layoffs In CBS Interactive Reorg
Cuts
CBS INTERACTIVE is cutting about 20% of the workforce at LONDON-based LAST.FM and merging the newsrooms of CBSNEWS.COM and its recently acquired CNET, resulting in an undisclosed number of layoffs, according to PAIDCONTENT.ORG and TECHCRUNCH. The CBSNEWS.COM and CNET.COM sites will maintain separate URLS and identities but will share content.

In addition, the company is moving the CHOW and URBANBABY sites to the Entertainment group of sites that include CBS.COM and TV.COM, and combining its Sports, Music, and Games sites into a single unit.

The moves follow the naming of CNET SVP MICKEY WILSON to replace CBS INTERACTIVE Chief Marketing Officer PATRICK KEANE earlier this week and last month's elimination of CNET's music website JUKE before its planned launch.

What hasn't been linear is the decision making and the vision. For instance, in areas at TDMN, for instance, plans to make arts coverage and event-information tabulation actually palatable and use-able for web 2.0 audiences have been kicked around for nearly a decade. But little has actually been launched because few in power have had a vision, much less been able to commit to a program, so that progression of the product could continue. The FWS-T has a belated start with http://www.dfw.com, and KERA, of course, has this wonderful forum of discourse.

But I can't help but think what could have been at TDMN if it'd allowed something resembling Art & Seek to launch and grow.

I left TDMN earlier this year because, like many, I saw the paralysis and the siege mentality take over – and I COULD leave (many who remain simply can't because they have mortgages to pay, kids to feed and educate, etc.). I'd hoped to free-lance to help make ends meet. But this new agreement will prevent me from doing that on a local level, and the free-lancers that I've talked to are as bothered as I am about it. I'd have to go national and supplement that with unrelated work to even approach my now-modest standard of living, which is about as streamlined as it can get already.

Or, I can get out completely.

And as Jerome indicated, the agreement is likely to broaden (more than likely, from what I've been told) into realms not mentioned here because, well, this is the arts, and the arts are somewhat experimental by nature themselves, right? :::rolls eyes::: But it's by no means going to end here.

pretty much sums it up.

The problem with online reviews is not posting them. It's getting them read. Who would look for them among the potential billions of online readers and millions of websites — and why? — and how would they find them if, say, they couldn't remember the name of the book or play or gallery? Then, how would they also read about that other thing they'd heard about in town?

In other words, so far, no one really does what good big-city daily newspapers do: provide across-the-board reviews of local and national culture with a modicum of professional expertise, directed at a local audience, and all of this in one place for a cheap price. And that's why the loss of newspaper arts coverage is tragic.

There's a simple reason that no one else is doing this at the level newspapers have: There's very little money to be made with local arts. It has been popular culture (meaning corporate-funded and distributed art like movies and music and TV) that has (mostly) paid the bills for the arts pages. Right now, it's not so much the internet that's killing newspaper arts coverage. It's the extreme downturn in print advertising. With the election money spigot turned off, expect even more newspaper cutbacks this next year.

Sorry. I didn't think it would interest everyone (and would bog down the story) to go through the entire roster of critics and freelancers by name. Also, this 'cost-saving collaboration' is indeed only beginning, so it wasn't clear (and still isn't) just who'll do what.

But this morning's Morning News provides your answer. Gaile Robinson's review of the Kimbell's Nativity and Fra Angelico, which originally appeared in the Star-Telegram several days ago, is now a News review by "special contributor" Gaile Robinson.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention something that the various public discussions about this practice never seem to get around to: The reviews may run in two papers but it seems the writers in question still get paid the same old salary. And for freelancers, this means that there is one less outlet for their work. Once, you could have pitched a story to one editor, gotten turned down and then tried the other paper. Not anymore. I'm also betting the News and S-T have already revised their freelance contracts to permit them to do this 'review sharing' — without increasing the freelance fee a penny.