Warner Music Group to cut 270 jobs, 4% of staff, in an effort to ‘evolve’

Warner Music Group is cutting 4% of its global staff, in what its chief executive Robert Kyncl described as part of an effort to “evolve” the music giant.

The cuts, announced Wednesday in a staff memo from Kyncl, are expected to affect about 270 of the company’s 6,200 employees around the world.

“In my discussions with our leaders across the company, many of them came to the same conclusion — that to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us, we need to make some hard choices in order to evolve,” wrote Kyncl, who took over as CEO earlier this year after previously serving as a top YouTube executive.

Stressing that “this is not a blanket cost-cutting exercise,” Kyncl noted that WMG will be “reallocating resources towards news skills for artist and songwriter development and new tech initiatives.” Further, the company would also be reducing its discretionary spending.

WMG’s cuts come amid a slew of cost-cutting measures and layoffs across the media and tech sectors. This week Disney initiated its plans to lay off 7,000 employees, while Meta announced the elimination of 10,000 jobs this month, after laying of 11,000 in November. NPR slashed 10% of its staff, citing a shortfall of $30 million in ad revenue.

WMG’s reductions come weeks after the company reported that its revenue dropped 8% for the three months ending Dec. 31, compared with the same period a year earlier, while digital revenue fell 5%.