Yahoo News BuzzFeed Discloses $5.3M In Restructuring Fees, Including Layoffs
BuzzFeed brought in $106.8 million in revenue during the second quarter as total time spent by users declined to 154 million hours, representing a 19 percent drop year over year.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti previously said in May during the company’s earnings call that he expected Q2 revenues to surpass $100 million.
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Though total revenue — driven by ads — surpassed that bench mark, BuzzFeed ended the quarter with $23.6 million in net losses. Content accounted for $40.3 million of the company’s revenue, representing a 66 percent year-over-year increase, while commerce revenue saw a 22 percent decline compared to the previous year, bringing in roughly $13.3 million during Q2.
“We expect recession concerns to continue putting pressure on advertising, and we’re prepared for what comes next,” Peretti said in announcing BuzzFeed’s Q2 results. “We’ve navigated multiple economic downturns and seismic industry shifts. I am confident we’ll do so again, positioning the company for long-term growth and monetization.”
The company also noted that this quarter alone restructuring costs amounted to $3.5 million, with some of those costs coming from the “strategic repositioning of BuzzFeed News,” which saw the departures of top editors and the loss of staffers through voluntary buyouts as the company seeks to make the newsroom profitable.
Beyond this quarter, for the past six months ending on June 30, restructuring efforts cost BuzzFeed about $5.3 million, with those costs largely reflecting the layoffs at HuffPost after the media company. was acquired by BuzzFeed from Verizon Media, according to the company’s earnings release.
In May, in its first earnings release since going public, BuzzFeed also saw a decline in user engagement while revenue landed at $91.6 million, the majority of which was driven by ad dollars. The company saw net losses reach $44.6 million for the quarter, with those losses driven by supply chain delays, BuzzFeed CFO Felicia DellaFortuna said at the time.
The media company, which now encompasses BuzzFeed, Complex and HuffPost, has struggled to perform since its IPO in December, and the BZFD stock has dropped roughly 50 percent in price over the past six months.
As for its film and TV ambitions, BuzzFeed Studios is forging ahead with its partnerships with Lionsgate and NBCUniversal and has released films like Book of Love, 1Up and My Fake Boyfriend on Amazon’s Prime Video this year.
BuzzFeed Studios recently hired Paul Ricci, a former MTV and VH1 executive, to oversee unscripted programming; the studio has also entered into a development deal with Ricci’s BoomTown Content Co. for new unscripted projects.
