Yahoo News Entertainment Partners Layoffs: Dozens Cut At Residuals Distributing Company
EXCLUSIVE: The company that cuts a lot of Hollywood’s residual checks cut dozens and dozens of employees this week.
Entertainment Partners laid off around 70 people in the past week, I hear.
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Hit by the economic downturn battering the entire industry due to the lack of a deal between the studios and striking guilds, the Mark Goldstein-led EP could be looking at even more layoffs down the line, sources says. “The way things are it’s dead out there for the company right now,” an insider tells Deadline.
Contacted by Deadline over the job cuts, Entertainment Partners did not respond to request for comment. If and when they do, this post will be updated.
Based in Burbank, and with offices in NYC, Vancouver, Toronto, Atlanta, San Juan, New Orleans, Las Cruces, New Mexico and Altrincham in the UK, it is unclear right now if the EP pink slipping was concentrated in LA County or spread out across the nation and globe. Formed in 1976, EP offers studios, steamers and others in the industry a variety of services beyond residuals distribution. Production finance, tax incentives management, payroll and budgeting work are also available — not that there is much need for them lately.
The layoffs at Entertainment Partners come in the larger context of the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that have shut down Hollywood over the past several months. With almost zero production, studios, agencies and others have been letting people go and third-party vendors across the board have since an obvious significant drop in business since the early May when the scribes first hit the picket lines.
It is estimated that on Day 137 of the WGA strikes that LA County has taken an economic hit of nearly $5 billion. The actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA has been on strike 64 days so far. This is the first time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan ran SAG, that both the writers and the actors have been on strike. While no obvious end appears in sight to the standdoff, the WGA and the studios and streamers are supposedly trying to nail down a date and time next week to try once again to make a new three-year deal.
Due to the company’s widespread use as a third party vendor for residuals payouts, Entertainment Partners has found itself in recent days involved in a dispute over the payments. To that end, the WGA has opened investigations on both coasts after a number of scribes reported delayed or lighter than usual checks for their legacy media shows.
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