from www.wcsh6.com
NBC's recently-announced cuts were put in motion on Friday with the pink-slipping of 17 "Dateline" employees from New York to California. This number doesn't include buyouts, which have been offered to dozens of employees company-wide (and which, according to TVNewser, are being taken up in numbers exceeding the layoffs). Correspondents Robb Stafford and Edie Magnus were reportedly among those laid off, as well as producers and bookers; apparently there are further cuts to come, which is understandably undermining staff morale (a report from Friday: "People who have been here for nearly 20 years were walking around weeping"). That situation will likely repeat itself later this week when, according to TVWeek, the axe will fall at "NBC Nightly News" and "Today." (NB: TVWeek's Michelle Greppi refers to the layoffs as the "involuntary separation process.")
Despite rumors that "Dateline" itself was cancelled, the show will go on, though its airtime has been cut from its former five-nights-a-week schedule to once per week on Saturdays, and, according to Variety, is "focusing editorially on true crime and its "To Catch a Predator" series on sexual predators."
