US satellite radio service SiriusXM has announced another round of layoffs on Monday (February 12), impacting roughly 3% of its staff.<\/p>\n
News of the latest layoff was picked up<\/a> by Billboard, <\/i>citing a company spokesperson and a memo to staff written by CEO Jennifer Witz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The move arrives 11 months after a previous 8%<\/strong> reduction<\/a> that affected 475<\/strong> roles. The latest round of cuts will affect around 170<\/strong> employees based on the company\u2019s head count of 5,680<\/strong> full-time and part-time employees<\/a> as of the end of 2023.<\/p>\n It comes as SiriusXM seeks to streamline operations and fuel investments in content, marketing, and its technology platform, a spokesperson reportedly told Billboard.<\/i><\/p>\n CEO Jennifer Witz echoed similar justifications used by other media companies like Universal Music Group<\/strong> and Spotify<\/strong>, emphasizing the need for agility and flexibility in a changing landscape. Last month, UMG was reported to be slashing \u201chundreds\u201d of jobs<\/a> in the first quarter, while Spotify in December announced that it is trimming 17%<\/strong><\/a> of its global workforce.<\/p>\n \u201cWe made significant progress on the transformation of our business in 2023, but we have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible here at SiriusXM.”<\/p>\n Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe made significant progress on the transformation of our business in 2023, but we have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible here at SiriusXM,\u201d Witz wrote in the memo cited by Billboard<\/i> and The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cTo continue on our path to future subscriber growth and sustain our company\u2019s success as the competitive landscape evolves, it\u2019s imperative that we become even more efficient, agile, and flexible. Therefore, today we are making several organizational changes, including the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles, which will allow us to move faster and collaborate more effectively in support of our long-term objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrom uniting teams and better aligning initiatives, to investing in new technologies that will power our transformation, we are focused on increasing efficiencies and redeploying resources to support the strategic priorities of our business.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTo continue on our path to future subscriber growth and sustain our company\u2019s success as the competitive landscape evolves, it\u2019s imperative that we become even more efficient, agile, and flexible. Therefore, today we are making several organizational changes, including the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles.”<\/p>\n Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The company faces challenges including declining revenue growth, with 2023 seeing a slight dip and a loss of nearly half a million satellite radio subscribers. Despite previous headcount reductions to 5,680<\/strong> from 5,869<\/strong> in 2023, expenses haven’t fallen accordingly, prompting further action.<\/p>\n However, SiriusXM remains optimistic. Their revamped streaming app, launched<\/a> in December at a $9.99-a-month<\/strong> price point and touted as a Spotify<\/strong> challenger, reportedly shows promising signs of engagement.<\/p>\n However, last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James<\/strong> sued<\/a> SiriusXM, accusing the company of \u201ctrapping consumers in unwanted subscriptions\u201d through deceptive and burdensome cancellation practices. The lawsuit came five months after SoundExchange<\/strong> filed a lawsuit<\/a> against SiriusXM over allegedly failing to pay $150 million<\/strong><\/a> in royalties to artists and rightsholders.<\/p>\n Pandora Media<\/strong>, which SiriusXM acquired<\/a> in 2019 in a $3.5 billion<\/strong> all-stock transaction, is also facing a lawsuit<\/a> in the US brought by The Mechanical Licensing Collective<\/strong>, which is accusing the company of underpaying royalties owed to rights holders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CEO Jennifer Witz says the company needs to be “more efficient, agile, and flexible” in today’s changing landscape<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":161543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[131812,131645,130655,1204],"class_list":["post-193747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-jennifer-witz","tag-job-cuts","tag-layoffs","tag-siriusxm"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}